SPC 2013


SPC 2013 Final Results

 

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

 

 


SPC 2013 Rules

GENERAL

 1. Once every year, each IEEE Student Branch (SB) may hold a Student Paper Contest (SPC) under its own responsibility.

  1. The winner(s) of each Branch Contest may compete for the Region 8 Contest, held within the Region limits. A Branch may submit one paper for every 100 branch members or part thereof, with a maximum of three papers.
  2. At Region 8 Contest an international Jury, will grade the written papers without knowledge of the identity of the author and of his school. Jury will decide which papers will be accepted for presentation at the Region 8 SPC oral finals.

4. Only IEEE student members and IEEE graduate student members are allowed to be authors of the SPC papers. Each author has to be a member of an IEEE R8 Student Branch at the time of the original submission of the paper to the Branch Contest and a member (student or not) of the IEEE at the time of the oral presentation. The work presented has to be completed before the student receives the engineering degree that entitles him/her to start preparing a doctoral thesis and the submission of the paper to the Region 8 Contest must be completed within 12 months after graduation. A doctoral thesis is not considered.

  1. Although the original paper – i.e. the paper that was submitted to the local Branch Contest – may  be written in any language, the paper that is submitted to the Region 8 Contest should be in English. The oral presentation shall be in English, as well.
  2. When entering a paper in the Region 8 Contest, each SB Counselor will provide a document certifying that condition 4 is fulfilled, giving the IEEE membership number(s) of the author(s), and stating during which year(s) after high school the work has been performed. Any other useful information concerning the work and background is welcome. This document should be attached to the Student Paper Cover Sheet (see “Author Guidelines on Paper Layout” and “Student Paper Cover Sheet”).
  3. Finalists selected by the Jury will be invited to present their papers at one of the Region 8 Conferences. If acceptable to the organizers of the conference at which the oral finals take place, the papers that have been accepted for oral presentation will be published in the proceedings of that conference and possibly included in IEEE Xplore Database. The final format of the papers, with included authors’ names and affiliations, should be in accordance with the conference proceedings’ rules. Electronic versions of the finalists’ papers will also be published in the IEEE Region 8 SAC web pages.
  4. Travel expenses (train 2nd class, or plane economy class for very long distances) will be provided by the Region 8 Student Activities Fund to one author of each paper accepted by the Jury for oral presentation. Living expenses which may occur while attending the oral presentation may also be reimbursed; the guidelines for this reimbursement will be mailed to attendees before the presentation.
  5. The Life Member Fund is offering three prizes (the year 2011 amounts were respectively 800, 500 and 200 US Dollars). Furthermore, the Region 8 Student Activities Fund offers 250 US Dollars as the “Dick Poortvliet Award” to the branch where the winner comes from.
  6. Published work is excluded from the Contest.  Any paper subsequently published should mention an acknowledgement of the received award.

 

CHARACTER OF THE PAPER

 11. Papers should cover technical and engineering aspects of a subject reasonably within or related to the areas with which the IEEE is concerned with.

  1. The work need not be original in engineering content, but should be original in treatment and concise in coverage of the author’s contribution to the subject.

 

DOCUMENT LAYOUT

 13. The paper must be typewritten on A4 size paper (210 mm × 297 mm), with the text width equal to 183 mm and the text height equal to 243.5 mm; a font size of 10 pt or larger should be used. The two-column IEEE Transactions style (with the space between columns equal to 4.1 mm) is required.

14. The paper should not exceed six (6) pages. Overlength papers will not be considered for the contest!

 

PAPER AND DOCUMENTS SUBMISSION

 15. An electronic version (pdf file) of the paper is to be sent before the deadline to the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest Coordinator:

Prof. Dr. George Paunovic, email: [email protected], fax: +381113370159.

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 73,

PF 3554, 11120 Belgrade, Serbia.

It is required that the version of the paper sent to the Region 8 Contest does not show the identities of the authors and their educational establishments.

The paper MUST be accompanied by the

  • Student Paper Cover Sheet (separate doc file),
  • SB Counselor certification document from point 6 (separate scanned file or copy sent by fax), and
  • signed IEEE Copyright form
  1. The submission deadline is 15 December.  

 

ORAL PRESENTATION

 17. Those authors selected to give an oral presentation should develop a pleasant and logical presentation of the subject matter fitted to 15-20 minutes. The Jury will question each contestant for an additional period of 10 minutes typical.

  1. An electronic presentation – based on Power Point, for instance – using a beamer (LCD data  projector) is preferred. Additional presentation tools may be provided if a request is made and granted in advance. The presentation should not attempt to cover the entire paper, but rather to give a general idea and enlarge on one or two specific points.

 

GRADING

  1. There shall be maximum five judges within Jury.
  2. The contributions are graded as follows:

 

  • written paper
    • technical content: 45 points maximum,
    • technical presentation: 25 points maximum,
  •  oral presentation: 30 points maximum.
  1. A preliminary selection based on the written document may be made by the members of the jury, either if too many papers are submitted or if some papers do not reach the expected level or formal requirements.

 

AUTHOR GUIDELINES ON PAPER LAYOUT


The following guidelines are suggested to assist grading by providing a uniform layout. In general, the paper should be organized as follows:

 

  • Student Paper Cover Sheet and Counselor Certification Document. Since the judges must handle the papers without knowledge of the identity of the author and his educational establishment, it is required that the paper itself show no such identification other than the title. The title, author(s)’ name(s) and IEEE membership number(s), corresponding author’s address, school, and Branch Counselor’s name must be shown on a removable cover sheet. The Counselor’s certification document should be removable too.
  • Title page. The title should consist of the minimum number of key words necessary to portray accurately the content of the paper. Reader’s interest is stimulated by a well-chosen title. The author’s name should not appear on the title page, nor should any other name of persons or schools.
  • Abstract. The abstract should not describe the paper, but should give in brief the essential facts of its content, for example, a brief statement of the problem or objective and a concise summary of results or conclusions, touching upon methods or other details only if they are unique or if they are of some particular significance. The abstract should be no longer than 100 words.
  • Introduction. The introduction should lead to the development of the subject so that the reader may obtain a clear understanding of the significance of the paper. This often can be done by giving briefly the state of the art as background. Then bring out the added advantages of the method of approach and emphasize the importance of the results or conclusions.
  • Body. The main argument of the development of the subject is carried out in the body of the paper, complete with supporting data. The argument should proceed in a logical sequence according to a prepared outline. The writing should be in the third person. Supporting data and results can often be presented most effectively as curves, charts or tables. Well-known abbreviations may be used in the text but should be defined where used the first time, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. Generally, the use of abbreviations should be confined to not duplicate text matter.
  • Conclusion. The conclusions are often considered the most important part of a paper. They should be stated concisely in a separate section at the end of the paper. If there are three or more conclusions, greater emphasis can be obtained by numbering each conclusion and setting it off in a separate paragraph.
  • Tables. Tables should be numbered consecutively using Roman numerals. Small tabulations or listings may be made in the text where necessary for continuity. Each table should be titled by giving a brief description as a heading following the table number at the top. Ditto marks should not be used in tables, but brackets may be used to group information common to several lines.
  • Diagrams. Three types of diagrams may be used: photographs, oscillograms, line drawings. Keep reading matter on illustrations to a minimum; include it in the captions. Portions of illustrations may be identified by letters and explained in the captions. Whenever feasible, combine several curves on the same co-ordinates. Their identifying letters or numbers should be in clear spaces between cross-section lines. If it is necessary to place data over cross-section lines, erase these lines.
  • Appendices. Detailed mathematical proofs, development of equations, and examples which are subordinate to the main argument in the body of a paper, but not essential to following the argument, should be treated in appendices. References are made in the text to details in the appendices. Main equations as they are developed should be numbered consecutively, with the number in parentheses opposite the equation in the right hand margin.
  • References.Any information or development taken from books, periodicals or courses, i.e. from any external source, should be clearly referenced in the text and a suitable reference list should be appended to enable the reader to consult those sources. References should be numbered consecutively and should follow the form shown below:
  1.   For a periodical: R. N. Hall, “Power rectifiers and transistors,” Proc. IRE, vol. 40, pp. 1512–1519, November 1952.
  2.  For a book: W. A. Edison, Vacuum Tube Oscillators, Wiley, New York, pp. 170–171, 1948.

 

JURY GUIDELINES ON GRADING THE PAPER

 

The following criteria are suggested to provide a uniform grading standard:

  • Do the authors present their independent work?
  • Is the significant amount of presented work new? Do the authors present a novel interpretation of some existing work?
  • Is the subject matter of substantial technical content and is it presented at an acceptably advanced level?
  • Is the 100-word abstract concise, informative and accurate?
  • Does the written presentation include a satisfactory introduction which properly orients the reader with respect to the general area with which the paper deals ? Does the concluding portion of the paper summarize the reader’s impression of what the work has accomplished ? Are the conclusions supported by evidence?
  • Does the exposition (and analysis which may be involved) proceed in an orderly and logical manner? Is the paper self-contained?
  • Does the author exhibit ingenuity and resourcefulness in methods of presentation, choice of illustrations, use of analogies and the like?
  • Is the paper technically accurate?
  • Is an unmistakable meaning conveyed with acceptable brevity?
  • Is the format and typesetting quality of the paper appropriate?

 

Student Paper Cover Sheet

 

Answer concisely and completely the questions in the form below, and send it as a separate file (doc)  together with the paper. Only the second part of the Cover Sheet will be sent to Jury and will help in grading the paper.

 

  • School:
  • Author(s), with their IEEE membership number(s):
  • Name, address, contact phone and e-mail of author to whom correspondence should be addressed:
  • Name, address, contact phone and e-mail of Student Branch Counselor
  • Name, address, contact phone and e-mail of Student Branch Chair

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

  • Paper title:
  • What is the problem and why is it important?
  • What is the original contribution of this work? Be explicit.
  • Does this work check and / or extend previously reported work? What work? Give references. Be explicit.
  • How does this contribution compare to previously published work?
  • If the paper is to be submitted to one of the IEEE Transactions, which Transactions would be the most appropriate?