Latest News and Updates

Student Paper Contest 2024-1st Phase Selection Results

 in Announcements / Latest News and Updates / News and Updates / Student Paper Contest (SPC)

The first phase of the Student Paper Contest 2024, the fifty-seventh edition of this prestigious and long-standing R8 student contest, has concluded. There were a total of 34, of which 32 were considered valid. 

The SPC 2024 international jury, comprising Prof. Gianfranco Chicco from Italy, Prof. Joao Carlos Ferreira from Portugal, Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta, and Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia, has anonymously selected the following five papers (listed alphabetically by authors’ first names) for the Regional Oral Finals: 

TOP 5 PAPERS – SPC 2024 FINALISTS
(alphabetically by authors’ first names)

Name of the first author

 University Country Paper Title

Jan Popič

 University of Maribor Slovenia Using Neural Networks in the Search of Low Auto-correlation Binary Sequences

Loay Alfeqy

 Ain Shams University Egypt BEVSORT: Bird Eye View LiDAR Multi Object Tracking
Matea Marinova

Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje

North Macedonia

 Accelerating Convergence in Split Learning for Time-Varying and Resource-Limited Environments

Matic Pokorn

 University of Ljubljana Slovenia

Smart Homes, Smarter Savings: Energy Trading with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Tim Bary

Université catholique de Louvain 

 Belgium Designing Pre-training Datasets from Unlabeled Data for EEG Classification with Transformers

 

SPC 2024 Oral Finals will take place as part of R8 flagship conference MELECON 2024, in Porto, Portugal, from June 25 to 27, 2024. The awards for students are $800, $500, and $200 for first, second, and third place, respectively, and the award for the winner’s Student Branch is $250.

The IEEE R8 Student Activities Committee extends congratulations to the authors of the top five papers and the IEEE Student Branches represented by the finalists! 

We express gratitude to all participants in SPC 2024! The majority of the submitted papers exhibit high quality, and we wholeheartedly encourage the authors to persist in their research work, as well as in the preparation and publication of technical papers.

Vera Markovic

IEEE R8 SAC

SPC Coordinator



Local Student Paper Contest Events Program

 in Announcements / Latest News and Updates / R8 SAC Programs for Sections / R8 SAC Programs for Student Branches / Student Paper Contest (SPC)

Introduction

The IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee is announcing the Local Student Paper Contest Events Program. This program calls for section student activities and student branch leaders to submit their own version of a local student paper contest and get the chance to showcase their papers on the Regional Student Paper Contest.

 

This is the first Call for proposals and there will be an additional two, in June and September. Please keep in mind that the total budget of the program is limited and that funds will be allocated according to the principle: of “first come, first served”.

 

Important Dates

  • Deadline for the submission of the proposal: May 20, 2023
  • Announcement on the funding decision: 2-3 weeks after the proposal submission deadline
  • Event Implementation: June – November 2023 (please plan November 23 as the last date for implementation because of the R8 SPC deadline, December 1)
  • Reporting Submission: by November 30, 2023
  • Funding Release: December 2023

 

Goals

 

The program aims to:

  • Giving incentives to IEEE Region 8 Sections and Student Branches for establishing local student paper contests;
  • Provide an opportunity for students to showcase their technical skills;
  • Promote Regional Student Paper Contest, as well as increase awareness and participation.

 

Rules

 

The program rules are the following:

  • Applicants to this program can be either Sections or Student Branches;
  • The application should include an endorsement letter:
    • For Sections, only Section Chair, SSAC or SSR can provide an endorsement;
    • For Student Branches, only Student Branch Chair or Counselor can provide an endorsement.
  • Participants should be students affiliated with the organizing OU;
  • The local SPC papers cannot get published in conference proceedings with ISBN;
  • The local contest should follow the rules of R8 SPC;
  • The finalist’s papers of these local events have to be submitted in the Regional Student Paper Contest:
    • 1 finalist for OUs with less than 100 student members;
    • 2 finalists for OUs with 100 – 199 student members;
    • 3 finalists for OUs with more than 200 student members.
    • Note: Student members include both Student Member Grade and Graduate Student Member Grade.

 

Submissions

 

The proposal shall contain the following information:

  • Summary of the proposal (max. 250 words)
  • Description of the Local Student Paper Contest
  • Proposed Title, Date, Venue and Organizing Team
  • Preliminary Budget
  • Suggested Program and Time Schedule
  • Goals and KPIs
    • Provide a short timeframe with milestones
    • The event should be organized within the year of approval and in any case before the R8 SPC deadline for submissions

The submission shall:

  • be a maximum of 6 pages (without endorsement letter);
  • be in Times new roman font and 11 font size;
  • be submitted in pdf format;
  • include as an attachment the endorsement letter.

 

Judging

 

Proposals will be judged from R8 SAC in the following areas:

  • Solid content and Planning;
  • Alignment with program goals.

 

Funding

 

The entries which exceed the minimum standards will receive up to 300$ per Student Branch or up to 500$ per Section to be used as secured funding. The funding will be sent to the (parent) Section’s bank account after the submission and evaluation of the final report. The funding does not cover virtual platforms costs and covers up to 80% of the total budget. Funding Eligibility Criteria and Outcome Reporting Rules are applied to this program.

 

Apply Now!

Application Form: Submit your Application HERE

Student Paper Contest 2023 – 1st PHASE SELECTION RESULTS

 in Announcements / Latest News and Updates / SPC 2023

The first phase of the Student Paper Contest 2023, which is the fifty-sixth edition of this prestigious and long-standing R8 student contest, has been completed. There were 13 submissions in total, of which 12 were accepted as valid. The papers were submitted by the following student branches: UCLouvain University (Belgium); two papers by Imperial College London (UK); University of Birmingham (UK); University of Niš (Serbia); Multimedia University of Kenya (Kenya); Kyambogo University (Uganda); Mutah University (Jordan); University of Ljubljana (Slovenia); University of Maribor (Slovenia); King Abdulaziz University (Saudi Arabia); and Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology of Sousse (Tunisia).

 

The SPC 2023 international jury, whose members are: Prof. Gianfranco Chicco from Italy, Prof. Joao Carlos Ferreira from Portugal, Prof. Paul Micallef  from Malta, and Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia, has anonymously selected the following five papers (listed in alphabetical order) for the Regional Oral Finals:

  • Jakub Lála, Imperial College London, UK, “Coarse-Graining of Molecular Dynamics Using Neural Ordinary Differential Equations”
  • Jonathan Parion, UCLouvain University, Belgium, “Low-temperature admittance spectroscopy for defect characterization in Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 thin-film solar cells”
  • Sarah Alyafeai, Rawan Duhaithem, Sara Alamoudi, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, “Smart Assistive Wearable Device for Alzheimer’s Patients”
  • Saša Obradović, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, “Evaluation of inertial measurement units and non-invasive muscle contraction sensors for monitoring cycling biomechanics”
  • Wenqiang Lai, Qihan Yang, Ye Mao, Endong Sung, Jiangnan Ye, Imperial College London, UK, “Knowledge Distilled Ensemble Model for sEMG-based Silent Speech Interface”

 

SPC 2023 Oral Finals will be organized within the scope of R8 flagship conference EUROCON 2023, in Turin, Italy, July 6-8, 2023. The awards for students are $800, $500, and $200 for first, second, and third place, respectively, and the award for the winner’s Student Branch is $250.

 

The IEEE R8 Student Activities Committee congratulates the authors of the top five papers and the branches where the finalists come from!

 

Many thanks to all participants in the SPC 2023! We would like to encourage the participating student branches, as well as all other Region 8 SBs, to take part in the SPC 2024!

 

 

 

Student Paper Contest 2023: Call for Papers

 in Announcements / Latest News and Updates / SPC 2023

GENERAL

The Student Paper Contest (SPC) is one of the main technical activities in Region 8. It was established in 1967 and since then it is an excellent occasion for personal leadership and involvement of student members in a prospective IEEE scientific/technical activity. The contest increases the visibility of student branches and allows for wider promotion of IEEE among students. The success of the SPC relies heavily on the input from the Student Branch Officers, especially the Student Branch Counselor and the Student Branch Chair.

 

Once every year, each IEEE R8 Student Branch (SB) may hold and organize a local Student Paper Contest under its own responsibility. The organization of a local SPC generally means that the contest should be announced publicly in advance and that all submitted papers are to be locally reviewed by qualified specialists. Additionally, all R8/Sections/Chapters IEEE Conferences, having student papers sessions included in their programs, could and should also be used to get additional proposals for SPC. As long as an SB is formally supporting and accepting any type of student papers contest activity, it is in line with the existing SPC rules. Student Branch Counselors should be fully involved in all local SPC activities, as well as all other local IEEE officers (Section Chairs, Chapter Chairs, student activities officers, members of executive committees, etc.).

 

The winner(s) of each local Student Branch Contest may compete in the Region 8 Contest. A Student Branch may submit one paper per every 100 Student Branch members or part thereof, with a maximum of three papers per SB. At the same time, especially in small branches where the managing a local contest is difficult, the IEEE section officers can encourage students to submit their work as a paper to the regional SPC. This is a good exercise for students, especially those who intend to continue to a doctorate. Starting this year, the IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee offers funding to IEEE Region 8 Sections and Student Branches to establish local student paper contests, through the Local Student Paper Contest Events Program. The aim of this new program is to increase student paper contest awareness and participation.

 

WHO COULD PARTICIPATE

IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest is intended for IEEE R8 student members or graduate student members who have not yet started their Ph.D. The work presented in the paper has to be completed before the student receives the engineering degree that entitles her/him to start preparing a doctoral thesis and it should be not published previously. The submission of a paper for SPC must be no later than 12 months after graduation. 

 

Papers should cover technical and engineering aspects of a subject within or related to the areas with which the IEEE is concerned. The work need not be strictly original in the scientific sense, but it should be original in the treatment of a certain topic and the author’s contribution to that topic should be clearly seen.

 

At initial submission, only students can be authors of the IEEE R8 SPC papers and each author must be a member of an IEEE Student Branch. However, in the second SPC phase, after five finalists are selected, the rules allow a supervisor/mentor to be added as a co-author in the final version of the paper which will be included in the conference proceedings and IEEE Xplore Library. This does not change in any way the basic rule that the submitted paper is the work of the student. At the time of the oral finals, which is normally about a half year after the initial submission, each finalist must be still a member of IEEE.

 

CONTEST PROCEDURE

Submitted papers will be graded by an international jury composed of 4-5 experts who are usually university professors from different Region 8 countries. The review will be double-blind, which means that the judges will handle the papers without knowledge of the identity of the authors/institutions. Jury members can engage other reviewers who are specialists in the corresponding fields. Based on grading, the top 5 papers will be selected. All five finalists (one author per paper) will be invited to present their papers at the IEEE R8 flagship conference EUROCON 2023 in Turin, Italy, on July 6-8, 2023.

 

The oral presentations will be graded by the same international jury as in the first part of the contest. On the basis of both the written and oral parts of the competition, the final ranking list and the decision about the winner will be made. There are prizes for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place of $800, $500, and $200, respectively. In addition, the student branch where the winner comes from will be awarded $250. The top 5 papers will be published in the Conference Proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

 

DEADLINE AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The paper submitted for SPC must not contain any data about authors and their institutions. It should not exceed 6 pages and must be written using the two-column IEEE Transaction style (with the space between columns equal to 4.1 mm). Please, carefully read AUTHORS GUIDELINES ON PAPER LAYOUT which is a part of “SPC rules”.

 

The paper must be accompanied by the following documents:

  • COVER PAGE (send as a Word document)
  • PAPER SUPPLEMENT (send as a Word document)
  • COUNSELOR CERTIFICATE (send as a pdf document)
  • IEEE Copyright form (send as a pdf document)

 

The deadline to send full papers to IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2023 is December 1st December 15th, 2022. Please send papers and supporting documents by email to [email protected].

 

ATTACHMENTS

Student Paper Contest 2022: Final Results

 in Announcements / Hall of Fame / Latest News and Updates / SPC 2022

The final part of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest, SPC 2022 oral finals, was held within the frame of the IEEE R8 flagship conference MELECON 2022, in Palermo, Italy, on June 14-16, 2022. After two years of adverse circumstances caused by the pandemic (SPC 2020 was held online and SPC 2021 was held in hybrid form), this year we gathered all the finalists and jury members allowing the event to be completely in person. It was the 55th edition of this traditional and important technical activity of the IEEE Region 8.

 

 

Members of the international jury who assessed the student papers in the first (written) part and presentations in the second (oral) part of the contest were Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta, Prof. Mike Hinchey from Ireland, Prof. Giambattista Gruosso from Italy and Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia, who is also the SPC coordinator. Many thanks for their efforts and dedication!

 

 

We were very honored by the presence of Antonio Luque, IEEE Region 8 director, Vincenzo Piuri, IEEE Region 8 Director elect, Simay Akar, IEEE Region 8 Student Activities Committee Chair, Habib Kammoun, R8 conference coordination committee chair and Theodoros Chatzinikolaou, Regional Student Representative, at the SPC 2022 oral finals.

 

Final Results

 

Given the high level of quality of works and presentations, the jury didn’t have an easy task to select the winners. The FIRST PRIZE and an award of $800 went to Zixuan Huang from Imperial College London, UK, for the paper entitled: “Beam-switching Circularly Polarized Antenna Array for Cold-chain Tracking RFID Applications”. In addition, the student branch of the SPC 2022 winner, Imperial College London SB, got a special award “Dick Poortvliet” of $250.

 

 

The winner of the SECOND PRIZE and the award of $500 is Lorenzo Lagostina from Politecnico di Torino, Italy, for the paper entitled: “Design of Low-power Arithmetic Logic Circuits for 45 nm CMOS Technology”

 

 

The THIRD PRIZE and award of $200 went to Emilija Ćojbašić from University of Niš, Serbia, for the paper entitled:  “Machine learning as an aid to predicting clinical outcome after stroke”.

 

 

The author of the paper placed in fourth place is Kristjan Cuznar from University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and his co-author and supervisor is Miha Glavan from Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. The paper is entitled: “Optimization of cold rolling process recipes based on historical data”

 

 

Finally, the paper authored by Matthieu Brabant from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, with two co-authors (supervisors): Olivier Pereira from Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and Pierrick Méaux from University of Luxembourg, entitled: “Homomorphic Encryption for Privacy-Friendly Augmented Democracy”, took fifth place.

 

Congratulations to the authors of the top five papers and branches where the finalists come from! All five papers are published in the MELECON 2022 Proceeding and in the IEEExplore digital library. Special CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd award! Many thanks to all participants in the SPC 2022! We expect many high-quality student papers for the SPC 2023.

 

 

Students’ Impressions

❝ The SPC oral final is a perfect opportunity to get to know the far-reaching research conducted by researchers from other universities. You are able to see how they identify, analyze, and tackle the problems they encountered. Competing with four other final lists was also a great experience, from which I could learn a lot about how to conduct and present research. Last but not least, it is a great experience to travel to a new country and savor a different culture.❞

~ Zixuan Huang

❝ The SPC has been an incredibly enriching experience for me. Writing a paper allowed me to drastically improve the way I present information, and also led me to a deeper understanding of my work while discussing some unexpected results. Presenting in front of such a jury has been an exciting moment that boosted my confidence. Last but not least, attending to the conference, listening to other researchers and meeting students and PhDs from all over the world has just been so thrilling. I really encourage future students to jump in this adventure, you won’t regret it.❞

~ Lorenzo Lagostina

❝ The SPC Oral Finals were a great honor and a privilege for me, as well as a remarkable opportunity to present my student research and gain some precious new experience. The chance to attend the renowned MELECON 2022 conference, meet the other outstanding finalists and exchange knowledge and impressions, and enjoy the charming city of Palermo was truly wonderful. This has given me the motivation to conduct further research, as well as to consider an academic career in the future.❞

~ Emilija Cojbasic

❝ The SPC oral finals were my first real steps into academia. It was a wonderful experience, from the research to the presentation of the results to other experts in the field. The trip itself and the time spent with foreign colleagues was also a special experience that I will never forget.❞

~ Kristjan Cuznar

❝ The Student Paper Competition was a great opportunity to attend and present at a major international conference. We had the opportunity to meet many doctoral and post-docs from all over the world in a challenging but relaxed Mediterranean atmosphere.❞

~ Matthieu Brabant

Student Paper Contest 2022: 1st Phase Results

 in Announcements / Latest News and Updates / SPC 2022

This year there were 15 submissions in total, from which 13 submissions were accepted as valid. The submissions were from the following student branches:

  1. University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
  2. Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
  3. University of Maribor, Slovenia
  4. Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingenieurs, Morocco
  5. Politecnico di Torino, Italy
  6. Qatar University, Qatar
  7. University of Niš, Serbia
  8. Bogazici University, Turkey
  9. Moi University, Kenya
  10. Imperial College London, UK
  11. University of Technology and Applied Sciences-Ibra, Oman
  12. Onaizah Colleges, Saudi Arabia
  13. Linkoping University, Sweden

 

This year, the members of the SPC international jury are:

  • Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta
  • Prof. Giambattista Gruosso from Italy
  • Prof. Mike Hinchey from Ireland
  • Prof. Vera Markovic from Serbia

 

The jury has anonymously selected the following five papers (listed in alphabetical order) for the Regional Oral Finals: 

  • Emilija Ćojbašić, University of Niš, Serbia, “Machine learning as an aid to predicting clinical outcome after stroke”
  • Kristjan Cuznar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, “Optimization of cold rolling process recipes based on historical data”
  • Lorenzo Lagostina, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, “Design of Low-power Arithmetic Logic Circuits for 45 nm CMOS Technology”
  • Matthieu Brabant, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, “Homomorphic Encryption for Privacy-Friendly Augmented Democracy”
  • Zixuan Huang, Imperial College London, UK, “Beam-switching Circularly Polarized Antenna Array for Cold-chain Tracking RFID Applications”

 

Congratulations to the authors of the top five papers and branches where the finalists come from! Many thanks to all participants in the SPC 2022!

Student Paper Contest 2021: Final Results

 in Announcements / Hall of Fame / Latest News and Updates / SPC 2021

The final part of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest (Oral Finals) was held within the frame of the TELSIKS 2021 conference, at the Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Nis, Serbia on 21 October 2021. The format of the Oral Finals was hybrid, and we managed in this difficult time of the pandemic to gather most of the finalists and jury members to participate in person. On the other hand, the hybrid form allowed those who could not travel to participate in the event online. The marks of the oral presentation in the final part (max 30) were added to the marks from the assessment of the written paper in the first part of the contest (max 70) to give the final result.

 

Members of the international jury who assessed the oral presentations were Prof. Paul Micallef from Malta, Prof. Mike Hinchey from Ireland, and Prof. Vera Markovic (also the SPC coordinator) from Serbia. In addition to them, Prof. Giambattista Gruosso from Italy also contributed to the work of the jury in the first part of the contest. Theodoros Chatzinikolaou, R8 Regional Student Representative attended the Oral Finals in person as well. The R8 SAC Chair, Simay Akar, participated in the event online.

 

 

Final Results

1ST PRIZE and award of $800

Olivier Leblanc1, Loïc Tadrist2, Nicolas Moreau1, Boris Brun1, Tristan Gilet2, Benoît Hackens1

1 UC Louvain SB, 2 University of Liege, Belgium

 

“An affordable pedagogical setup for wave-particule duality and applications to chaotic stadium cavity” 

In addition, the student branch of the winner, UC Louvain SB, gets an award of $250.

 

2ND PRIZE and award of $500

Eva Boneš, Matija Marolt

University of Ljubljana SB, Slovenia

 

“Automatic segmentation of the Golgi apparatus in volumetric data with approximate labels”

 

3RD PRIZE and award of $200

Yazan Alnajjar, Jinane Mounsef

University of Rochester Institute of Technology Dubai SB, UAE

 

“Next-Generation Network Intrusion Detection System (NG-NIDS)”

 

4th and 5th Place

Damjan Denić, Predrag Aleksov, Igor Vučković

University of Niš SB, Serbia

 

“Object recognition with machine learning for people with visual impairment”
Salma Moufid, Fatima Zahra Lachgar, Chaimae El Ainzroudi, Anass Ait Ben El Arbi

Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingenieurs SB, Morocco

 

“Improving Steganography using Image Compression JPEG”

 

CONGRATULATIONS to the winners and two other finalists!

 

 

Oral Finals at TELSIKS 2021

This hybrid event provided an opportunity for students to get together and to feel the atmosphere of an international conference. In addition to the conference organizers, the local student branch (SB Nis, chaired by Milos Marjanovic) was co-hosting finalists and the R8 student representative during their stay. They got acquainted with the activities of the SB Nis and spent pleasant moments together with SB Nis representatives during their free time.  

 

The social program included also a sightseeing tour and a nice conference dinner with live music. During the dinner, an award ceremony for SPC finalists was held.

 

From left to right: Damjan Denic, Igor Vuckovic, Vera Markovic, Predrag  Aleksov, Eva Bones, Paul Micaleff, Olivier Leblanc, Milos Marjanovic, and Theodoros Chatzinikolaou 

 

 

Students’ Impressions

❝ The SPC Oral Finals are a wonderful opportunity to discover a new city, especially a new university with different habits and ways to work and teach scientific matter. We can enjoy sharing our work with foreign colleagues, as well as being evaluated by internationally known professors all around the R8.❞

~ Olivier Leblanc

❝ The SPC Oral Finals were my first encounter with the world of conferences. It was a great experience, from learning to prepare a paper for publishing all the way to the actual presentation, and it gave me the confidence for all future challenges. The whole trip, especially the social part of it, was a very sweet cherry on top.❞

~ Eva Bones