This year there were 13 valid papers submitted by the closing date of December 15, 2019. The papers were seen by four jury members:

• Prof Mustapha Benjallali from Morocco
• Professor Vera Markovic  from Serbia
• Professor Giambattista Gruosso from Italy
• Professor Paul Micallef from Malta who is also the SPC Co-ordinator

The jury members are rotated over a period of time depending on where Melecon and Eurocon are held. The participants were from the following countries:

Belgium, Iran, Ireland, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Qatar, Serbia, Slovenia, and Spain.

The five papers, chosen by the jury members, that will be presented at Melecon 2020 in Palermo, Italy are:

• Matthias Swiggers, KU Leuven, Belgium, ” A Four-Quadrant Switched Capacitor DC-DC Convertor Enabling Power-Efficient Lab-Grade Potentiostats.”
• Maxim Van den Abeele, KU Leuven, Belgium, ” Object-Centric Street Scene Synthesis with Generative Aversarial Networks.”
• Mark Cauchi, University of Malta, Malta, “ An Improved Variable Neighbourhood Search Algorithm for Selective Dial-a-Ride Problem.“
• Najla Al-Thani, Alreem Albuainain, Fatima Alnaimi, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar,  “Drones for Sheep Livestock Monitoring.“
• Kristjan Stopar, University of Maribor, Slovenia, “Device for visual kinesthetic navigation of the blind and visually impaired.“

According to the SPC rules, where papers have multiple authors, IEEER8  supports only one author of each paper accepted by the Jury for oral presentation.

The  student branches that submitted a paper to  SPC2020 are

• University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Universite’ Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
• University of  Niš, Serbia
• Qatar University, Qatar
• University of Maribor, Slovenia
• K.N.Toosli University of Technology, Iran
• Beirut Arab University, Lebanon
• University of Malta, Malta
• ENSIAS Rabat, Morocco
• National University of Galway, Ireland
• KU Leuven (2), Belgium

Paul Micallef

SPC Coordinator

The oral presentations of the finalists took place during EUROCON2019 at NoviSad, Serbia between July 1 and July 3.
The jury members were Prof Anastas Mishev, Prof Vera Markovic and Prof Paul Micallef.
Here are the results.

• FIRST PRIZE and award of $800
  Ariane de Vroede, KULeuven SB
  “A 94 GHz Voltage-Boosted Energy Harvester in 45 nm CMOS Achieving a Peak Efficiency of 21.2% at – 8.5dBm Input Power”.
• SECOND PRIZE and award of $500
  S. Akhavan, M. Kamarei, H. Soltanian-Zadeh, University of Tehran SB
  “Spatio-Temporal Modeling of Absence Epileptic Seizures Using Depth Recordings”.
• THIRD PRIZE and award of $200
  Gabriele Mosaico, Matteo Saviozzi, University of Genova SB
  “A hybrid methodology for the day-ahead PV forecasting exploiting a Clear Sky Model or Artificial Neural Networks”.

The student branch of the winner – KULeuven SB – also gets the ‘Dick Poortvliet Award’ of $250.

The Oral Presentations  for the five finalists of the SPC 2018 were held on May 2 at Melecon 2018 at Marrakesh, Morocco.

The marks of the oral presentation, (max 30) were added to the marks from the assessment of the written paper (max 70) to give the final result. The first three prizes have also a financial reward of US$800, US$500 and US$200 respectively awarded from the IEEE Life Member Fund

First Prize

Ahmed Abdelraouf Mohamed, Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport Cairo SB, Egypt, with the paper , “A Multi-Objective Distributed Generation Allocation and Sizing using Swarm Intelligence Based Algorithms”

Second Prize

Benjamin Chiêm, Université Catholique de Louvain SB, Belgium, with the paper, “Supervised classification of structural brain networks reveals gender differences”

Third Prize

Marko Mihajlovic and  Nikola Popovic, University of Niš SB, Serbia, with the paper, “Fooling a neural network with common adversarial noise”

Congratulations to the three winners, but also to the other two finalists

Nima Taghipour Bazargani, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran SB, Iran, with the paper, ” A Novel Approach for Probabilistic Hurricane Resiliency Assessment of an Active Distribution System Using Point Estimate Method”

Yazan Qiblawey with co-authors Ruslan Abu Sneineh, Majd Ahmed Abduljabbar and Yousef Jamal Orabi, Qatar University, Doha  SB, Qatar, with the paper, “Design and Implementation of Autonomous Surface Vehicle”

The SPC 2019 will be announced soon, and Student Branch Counsellors should start looking for the best student to send in a paper to the contest.

This year there were ten valid submissions for SPC2017. The submissions were from KU Leuven (2) (Belgium) Universite Catholique de Louvain (Belgium), East African School of Aviation (Nairobi, Kenya), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary), INPT Rabat (Morocco), King Abdul Aziz University, (Jeddah), Saudi Arabia University of Nis (Serbia), University of Maribor (Slovenia) and University of Valencia, Spain.

The jury members who examined the papers were

• Prof Paul Micallef, Malta – Chair
• Prof Samir Shaheen, Egypt
• Prof  Mohamad Awad, Lebanon.
• Prof  Christos Schizas, Cyprus
• Prof Anastas Mishev, Macedonia

The five students chosen by the jury members after the first stage in this year’s SPC competition attended MELECON 2017 at Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia, where they presented their papers in front of the  jury members and other interested listeners who were attending the conference.

The five finalists were

• Ely De Pelecijn from KU Leuven
• Gautier Tihon from the Universite Catholique de Louvain
• Istvan Taczi from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics
• Lucija Brezočnik from the University of Maribor
• Tim Thielemans from KU Leuven.

The organizers of Melecon 2017 hosted the five students at the conference, in a beautiful location on Lake Ohrid, giving them free registration and participation at the conference functions.  IEEE R8 paid for the travel and accommodation.

From these five, the jury chose the best three. These were

FIRST               Lucija Brezočnik from the University of Maribor

Paper Title: Feature selection for classification using particle swarm optimization

SECOND          Tim Thielemans from KU Leuven

Paper Title: A Capacitive Gearbox DC/DC Converter enabling Skyscraper CMOS with Dynamic Voltage Scaling

THIRD  Ely De Pelecijn from KU Leuven

Paper Title:  High Speed Time-multiplexed Continuous Time Sigma-Delta Converters

Since there are some missing entries in the history of SPC in R8, it is difficult to establish definitely when there were other female winners. There is only one other recorded instance of a female winner and she was a co-author in SPC 1988.  So this year’s winner is the first female author to win the SPC over a period of nearly thirty years, and the first leading female author.

The certificates to the finalists were presented by Region 8 Director Margaretha Eriksson during the gala dinner on July 7.

The winning papers also have an award of $800, $500 and $200 dollars respectively given by the IEEE Life Member Fund. Further, the Student Branch of the first classified receives $250 as the Dick Poortvliet Award from Region 8.

Director R8 with FIRST PRIZE Winner Lucija  Brezočnik

Director R8 with SECOND PRIZE WinnerTim Thielemans

Director R8 with THIRD PRIZE Winner Ely De Pelecijn

Three Jury Members R8 Director and five finalists at the award ceremony

The IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2016 was announced in June 2015. The deadline to submit Student Branches best papers to R8 contest was December 15, 2015. 

Within the SPC 2016 campaign, the following activities were realized, mainly by emails:

• Beginning June 2016 a SPC 2016 email call with essential SPC data and rules was sent to all R8 SB chairs.
• The same email was also sent to all SB counselors.
• Different versions of the SPC calls were sent to SB chairs and counselors three more times.
• All Region 8 IEEE student members got once email with brief information about various Students’ activities, including SPC.
• Section chairs, Section students’ representatives and student activities officers also obtained basic information about SPC, asking them to support and co-organize SPC activities. It was especially emphasized to connect when possible local SPC contests with other IEEE R8 Sections and Chapters activities.

Before the deadline 32 IEEE student papers were submitted. 30 papers were accepted and graded.  .

SPC 2016 contestants were from 19 Sections and 25 different Student Branches/Institutions:

• Universite Catholique de Louvain,  Benelux

*ENSIAS-University Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco

• Univeresity Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

*University of Bologna, Italy

• Univ Maribor, Slovenia

*University of Bahrain

*University of Bucharest, Romania

• University of Nis, Serbia

*Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

• University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

*University of Tehran, Iran

*Sohag University, Egypt

*Eindhoven University of Technology, Benelux (2)

*University of Southampton, UKRI

• Telecom Bretagne, France

*KU Leuven, Benelux (2)

*Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Lebanon

• Klagenfurt University, Austria;

*Isfahan University of Technology, Iran

*King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (3)

• University of Valencia, Spain

*Ss Cyril and Metodius University, Skopje, Macedonia

*Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

*University of Applied Sciences Bielefel, Germany

*University of Technology and Economics Budapest, Hungary (2)

The first phase of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished at the beginning of February 2016. During this phase the International Jury:

– Prof. Paul Micallef, Malta – Chair,

• Prof. Samir Shaheen, Egypt,

– Prof. Andrzej Pacut, Poland,

– Prof. Mohamad Awad, Lebanon,

-Prof. Christos Schizas, Cyprus

anonymously graded all papers. The contributions were graded as follows:

– Written paper evaluation:

• 45 points maximum for the technical and engineering content,
• 25 points maximum for the paper content presentation.

Jury selected the following five papers (in alphabetical order of the first author’s first name) for the SPC 2016 Oral Finals:

A.J. Van den Biggelaar (91222905)  “A Fast, Flexible and Accurate Algorithm for Shaping the 3D Radiation Pattern of an  AAS”, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Laszlo Pinter (93247672) “Statistical Analysis of the Electrical Vehicle Chargers’ Impacts on the Low-voltage Distribution System”, University of Technology and Economics Budapest, Hungary

Marko Bizjak (93544587) “The segmentation of a point cloud using locally fitted surfaces”, University of Maribor, Slovenia

Serban Mihalache (92528080), Florin-Silviu Dumitru (93718008)  “Current-Mode Capacitance Multiplier with Reduced Parasitic Elements ”, University of Bucharest, Rumania

Stefan Wunsch (93708480) “Reducing the Processing Loss of Windowed Transforms using Linear Discriminant Analysis ”, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

The first phase of the IEEE R8 SPC – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished March  2016.

IEEE Region 8 SPC 2016 – II phase

ORAL FINALS, SELECTION OF WINNERS AND WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT

The second phase of the Region 8 SPC 2016 – Oral Finals – was organized in Limassol, Cyprus  April 19, 2016, during the MELECON 2016 IEEE Conference.

The five finalists were examined on the technical presentation, their communication skills and their answers to the questions from the jury members and from the audience present at the presentation. The marks awarded by the jury members, out of a possible 30 marks, were added to the marks obtained in the first stage to obtain the final total.  The jury members had a further discussion on the results and agreed to the following.

The first three prizes awarded, from the IEEE Life Member Fund, were to:

 First Prize:  Certificate and 800 USD (cash award amount):

Stefan Wunsch (93708480) “Reducing the Processing Loss of Windowed Transforms using Linear Discriminant Analysis ”, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Branch, from which the First Prize winner of the SPC 2016 came from, will receive the Region 8 “Dick Poortvliet Award”, an amount of USD 250;

Second Prize: Certificate and 500 USD (cash award amount):

A.J. Van den Biggelaar (91222905)  “A Fast, Flexible and Accurate Algorithm for Shaping the 3D Radiation Pattern of an  AAS”, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Third Prize: Certificate  and 200 USD (cash award amount):

Serban Mihalache (92528080), Florin-Silviu Dumitru (93718008)  “Current-Mode Capacitance Multiplier with Reduced Parasitic Elements ”, University of Bucharest, Rumania

The official award ceremony of SPC 2016 was organized during the MELECON 2016 Gala Dinner, April 19, 2016. IEEE Region 8 Director Costas Stasopoulos and SPC 2016 Coordinator Paul Micallef introduced all the SPC finalists, and the members of the Jury and announced the three winners. All finalists also obtained certificates that their papers were selected as the five best SPC 2016 papers.

All finalists papers were included in MELECON 2016 Proceedings and in IEEE Explore digital library.

Finalists and jury members

Award ceremony for SPC2016

Call for SPC 2016 is out for more than one month now! Five papers will be chosen to compete on the first 3 places in the region during MELECON’16 by April 2016 in Limassol, Cyprus.

A good opportunity to share with you the Winners from SPC 2015 oral finals held during EUROCON’16 in Salamanca, Spain.

IEEE R8 STUDENT PAPER CONTEST 2014

www.ieeer8.org/category/student-activities/awards-and-contest/student-paper-contest

What is IEEE Region 8 (R8) Student Paper Contest (SPC)?

 SPC is a traditional, long existing IEEE activity for undergraduate and MSc IEEE students (but not for PhD Students). SPC is probably the OLDEST PERMANENT STUDENT ACTIVITY in IEEE Regon 8  – existing over 45 years ! In fact SPC is a mixture of student, technical,educational, scientific and academic activities. Professors and IEEE volunteers with non-student grades  should be inevitably involed  in SPC. 

How does SPC work?

    SPC is a multi-level process. Local contest is at the Student Branch (SB) level, under SB sole responsibility. The winner(s) of each SB Contest may compete for the regional SPC. Paper submission deadline to submitt papers to R8 is December 15, each year. An international Jury is reviewing papers anonymously. Oral Finals and Winners Announcenents are being organized along with the EUROCON / MELECON Region 8 flagship conferences.                              

IEEE Region 8 SPC 2014 – I phase results 

SELECTION OF IEEE R8 STUDENT PAPER CONTEST 2014 ORAL FINALISTS

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2014 was announced beginning June 2013. The deadline to submit Student Branches best papers to R8 contest was December 15, 2013. 

Within the SPC 2014 campaign, the following activities were realized, mainly by emails:

• Beginning June 2013 a SPC 2014 email call with essential SPC data and rules was sent to all R8 SB chairs.
• The same email was also sent to all SB counselors.
• Different versions of the SPC calls were sent to SB chairs and counselors three more times.
• All Region 8 IEEE student members got once email with brief information about various Students’ activities, including SPC.
• Notes about SPC were included in Region 8 News/Student news, December 2013 issue.
• Section chairs, Section students’ representatives and student activities officers also obtained basic information about SPC, asking them to support and co-organize SPC activities. It was especially emphasized to connect when possible local SPC contests with other IEEE R8 Sections and Chapters activities.
• Several other single activities were also realized in order to make SPC 2014 more successful.

Before the deadline 24 IEEE student papers were submitted. Additionally,  two papers were late  and were not registered. 23 papers were accepted and graded.  .

SPC 2014 contestants were from 15 Sections and 21different Student Branches/Institutions:

• EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland;

• University of Ljubljana, Slovenia;

• Univ Maribor, Slovenia

• Technical University, Munich, Germany;

• Alexandria University, Egypt (2);

• Univeresity Carlos III, Madrid, Spain;

• University of Malaga, Spain

• TechUniversity of Eindhoven, Benelux;

• Telecom Bretagne, France;

• Tomsk Poly University, Russia

• Klagenfurt University, Austria;

• Saint-Petersburg University, Russia;

• University of Nis, Serbia & Montenegro;

• University of Belgrade, Serbia & Mne ; 

• Ecole Nationale d’Ing Sfax (ENIS), Tunis;

• Cathol. University of Louvain, Benelux;   

• United Arab Emirates, Fujairaht

   * United Arab Emiraes, KUSTAR 

• University Sofia, Bulgaria

• University KIM Skopje, Makedonia

• Univeresity of Stochholm, Sweden

The first phase of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished beginning of March 2014. During the I phase the International Jury:

• Prof. George Paunovic, Serbia – Chair, [email protected]

• Prof. Samir Shaheen, Egypt,

• Prof. Andrzej Pacut, Poland,

• Prof. Carlos Lopez-Barrio, Spain,

• Prof. Mohamad Awad, Lebanon,

anonymous graded all papers. The contributions were graded as follows:

• Written paper evaluation:

• 45 points maximum for the technical and engineering content,

• 25 points maximum for the paper content presentation.

Jury selected the following five papers (in alphabetical order of the first author’s first name) for the SPC 2014 Oral Finals:

Nasser Al Rayhi (90756837), Rashid Al Tuniji (92885686), Shaimaa Al Hefaity (90823344)
“Enhanced Indoor Navigation and Tracking Using Support Vector Machine and Internal Mobile Phone Sensors”, Khalifa University of Science Technology and Research (KUSTAR), Sharjah- United Arab Emirates;
Nick Janssen (92546522): “Analysis and Design of Complex Structures with an Eigencurrent Expansion Method”, Technical University Eindhoven, Netherlands;

Nicolas Van der Noot (92784951), Allan Barrea (92891793): “Zero-Moment Point on a Bipedal Robot under Bio-Inspired  Walking Control”, Catholique University of Louvain (Jt.CAS-004/ED-015), Benelux

Sava Grkovic (92891029): “Small Balanced Antennas for Bluetooth Applications”, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro;

Slobodan Mitrovic  (92860979): “Homometric Sets in Diameter-two and Outerplanar Graphs”,
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
The first phase of the IEEE R8 SPC – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished March 8, 2014.
IEEE Region 8 SPC 2014 – II phase results     

ORAL FINALS, SELECTION OF WINNERS AND WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT

Second phase of the Region 8 SPC 2014 – Oral Finals – was organized in Beirut, Lebanon,  on Monday  April 14, 2014, during the MELECON 2014 IEEE Conference (www.melecon2014.org).

SPC finalists obtained up to 30 points maximum, depending on the quality of the paper presentations and given answers.  Oral Finals session was well attended. The papers Power Point introductions were well prepared and presented (all within permitted 15 minutes). There were quite a number of questions, both from Jury members and from audience. The finalists’ answers were very good.

Nasser Al Rayhi (90756837), Oral Finalist from Khalifa University of Science Technology and Research Student Branch, Sharjah – United Arab Emirate, did not participate in the competition.

When session finished, Jury had a private discussion and awarded three prizes, from the IEEE Life Member Fund, to:

 I prize:  Diploma and 800 USD (cash award amount):

Slobodan Mitrovic  (92860979): “Homometric Sets in Diameter-two and Outerplanar Graphs”,
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland
EPFL Student Branch, from which the I prize winner of the SPC 2014 came from, will receive the Region 8 “Dick Poortvliet Award”, an amount of USD 250;

II prize: Diploma and 500 USD (cash award amount):

Nick Janssen (92546522): “Analysis and Design of Complex Structures with an Eigencurrent Expansion Method”, Technical University Eindhoven, Netherlands;
III prize: Diploma and 200 USD (cash award amount):

Nicolas Van der Noot (92784951), Allan Barrea (92891793): “Zero-Moment Point on a Bipedal Robot under Bio-Inspired  Walking Control”, Catholique University of Louvain (Jt.CAS-004/ED-015), Benelux
The official recognition of the winners, finalists and SPC Jury was organized during the MELECON 2014 Gala Dinner, April 14, 2014. IEEE Region 8 Director Martin Bastiaans and SPC 2014 Coordinator George Paunovic introduced all the SPC finalists, members of the Jury and pronounced three winners. All finalists also obtained certificates that their papers were selected within the five best SPC 2014 papers.

The conference was very successfully and efficiently organized in downtown Beirut in a comfortable hotel with the modern conference center. Let me especially emphasize that the SPC participants and members of the Jury received complete free registration, as well as warm and friendly hospitality.

All finalists papers were included in MELECON 2014 Proceedings and in IEEE Explore digital library.

After sending the SPC final results to IEEE services, the official prizes (diploma and money) are to be sent by IEEE Services to winners within the next period.

<

p style=”text-align: left”>As soon as possible, complete report-information about the results of IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2014 will be posted at SAC page, including several pictures. An article about SPC 2014 is planned for Region 8 News.

 ,(Professor George Paunovic  ([email protected]

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest coordinator

IEEE R8 STUDENT PAPER CONTEST 2013

IEEE R8 SPC 2013 – I phase results

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2013 was announced beginning June 2012. The deadline to submit Student Branches best papers to R8 contest was December 15, 2012. 

Within the SPC 2013 campaign the following activities were realized, mainly by emails:

• Beginning June 2012 a SPC 2012 email call with essential SPC data and rules was sent to all R8 SB chairs.
• The same email was also sent to all SB counselors.
• Different versions of the SPC calls were sent to SB chairs and counselors three more times.
• All Region 8 IEEE student members got two times emails with information about various Students’ activities, including SPC.
• Notes about SPC were included in Region 8 News/Student news, June and December issues.
• A SPC Workshop was organized during the 2012 Student Branch and Gold Congress in Madrid.
• Section chairs, Section students’ representatives and student activities officers also obtained basic information about SPC, asking them to support and co-organize SPC activities. It was especially emphasized to connect when possible local SPC contests with other IEEE R8 Sections and Chapters activities.
• Several other single activities were realized in order to make SPC 2013 more successful.

Before the deadline 42 student papers were submitted. 41 student papers were accepted, one paper was rejected (duplicate). Before the selection of the SPC Oral Finalists four more papers were excluded from grading process (three were found as already published and one was part of doctoral studies).

SPC 2013 contestants were from 22 Sections and 34 different Student Branches:

• University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa;
• Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland;
• University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
• Queen Mary University of London, London, UKRI;
• Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany;
• Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany;
• Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt;
• University Carlos III of Madrid, Madrid, Spain;
• University of Nis (Jt. ED-015/SSC-037), Nis, Serbia and Montenegro;
• Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece;
• KU Leuven, Leuven, Benelux;
• Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark;

• University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro

• University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran;
• Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria;
• University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro;
• Ecole Nationale d’Ingenieurs de Sfax (ENIS), Tunisia;

• University of Greenwich, Greenwich, UKRI;

• Catholique Univ of Louvain (Jt. CAS-004/, Louvain, Benelux;

• Universita del Salento, Salento, Italy;

• Opole University of Technology, Opole, Poland;

• Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Benelux;

• Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary;

• University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia;

• Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland;

• University of Manchester, Manchester, UKRI;

• Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk, Russia;

• Telecom Bretagne, France;

• Arab American University, Palestine;

• Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark;

• Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

• Saint-Petersburg State Polytechnic University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia

* University of Naples Parthenope, Naples, Italy

* ISCTE University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

The first phase of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished beginning of March 2013. During the I phase the International Jury:

• Prof. George Paunovic, Serbia – Chair, [email protected]

• Prof. Samir Shaheen, Egypt,

• Prof. Andrzej Pacut, Poland,

• Prof. Carlos Lopez-Barrio, Spain,

• Prof. Mario Cifrek, Croatia,

anonymously graded papers. The contributions were graded as follows:
– Written paper evaluation:

• 45 points maximum for the technical and engineering content,
• 25 points maximum for the paper content presentation.

The Jury of the IEEE Region 8 SPC 2013 selected the following five papers (in alphabetical order of the author’s first name) for the SPC 2013 Oral Finals:

Marcos André Pinto: “Web-Based System for Automatic Evaluation of Java Algorithms”, ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Saeed Karimimehr : “A Novel Face Recognition System Inspired by Computational Neuroscience”, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran;

Maarten Van de Put : “Band-to-band tunneling in III-V semiconductor heterostructures”, KU Leuven, Leuven, Benelux;

Giel J. Op ’t Veld: ”On a New Compressed Sensing Paradigm in The Modulated Wideband Converter”, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Benelux

Diego Marmsoler: “On the Laws of Failure: A Theory of Compensable Programs”, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany;
IEEE R8 Student Paper Contest 2013 – II phase

Second phase of the SPC 2013 – Oral Finals were successfully realized in Zagreb, Croatia, on Monday July 1, 2013, during the EUROCON  IEEE Conference (www.eurocon2013.org). SPC finalists obtained up to 30 points maximum, depending on the quality of the paper presentations and given answers.

Session was reasonably well attended. The papers Power Point introductions were well prepared and presented (all within permitted 15 minutes). There were quite a number of questions, both from Jury members and from audience. The finalists’ answers were very good.

When session finished, Jury had a private discussion and awarded three prizes, from the IEEE Life Member Fund, to:

I prize:  Diploma and 800 USD (cash award amount):

Maarten Van de Put: “Band-to-band tunneling in III-V semiconductor heterostructures”,

KU Leuven, Benelux Section;

The KU Leuven Student Branch, from which the I prize winner of the SPC 2013 came from, will receive the Region 8 “Dick Poortvliet Award”, an amount of USD 250;

II prize: Diploma and 500 USD (cash award amount):

Saeed Karimimehr:  “A Novel Face Recognition System Inspired by Computational Neuroscience”, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran Section;

III prize: Diploma and 200 USD (cash award amount):

Diego Marmsoler:  “On the Laws of Failure: A Theory of Compensable Programs”, Technical University of Munich, Germany Section;
The official recognition of the winners, finalists and SPC Jury was organized during the EUROCON 2013 Gala Dinner, July 3,  2013. IEEE Region 8 Past Director Marko Delimar and SPC 2013 Coordinator George Paunovic introduced all the SPC finalists, members of the Jury and pronounced three winners. All finalists also obtained certificates that their papers were selected within the five best SPC 2013 papers.

All finalists papers were included in EUROCON 2013 Proceedings, will be included in IEEE Explore digital library and will be posted to SAC/SPC Internet pages.

After sending the SPC final results to IEEE services, the official prizes (diploma and money) are to be sent by IEEE Services to winners within the next period.

As soon as possible, complete report-information about the results of IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2013 will be posted at SAC page, including several pictures. An article about SPC 2013 was planned for Region 8 News.

Professor George Paunovic,

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest coordinator