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  • Cloud Radio-Access Networks: Coding Strategies, Capacity Analysis, and Optimization Techniques

    Room BA 1230, 40 St. George Street, Toronto

    Friday May 6th, 2016 at 3:30 p.m. Prof. Wei Yu, IEEE Fellow, will be presenting an IEEE Distinguished Lecture, “Cloud Radio-Access Networks: Coding Strategies, Capacity Analysis, and Optimization Techniques”. Speaker: Prof. Wei Yu IEEE Fellow IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors (2015-17) IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer (2015-16) Day & Time: Friday, May 6th, 2016 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Location: Room BA 1230 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto, St. George Campus 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) is an emerging wireless cellullar architecture in which the base-stations (BSs) take advantage of high-capacity backhaul links to upload signal processing and computation to a cloud-computing based central processor. The C-RAN architecture offers an enabling platform for the centralized joint encoding and joint decoding of user messages and a capability for intercell interference mitigation across the BSs. In this talk, we address the capacity analysis and optimization technique for C-RAN while specifically taking into account the finite capacity constraint on the backhaul links. In the uplink, the C-RAN architecture can be modeled as a multiple-access relay channel. We analyze a compress-and-forward scheme in which the BSs quantize the received signals and send the quantized signals to the central processor using Wyner–Ziv coding. We also propose a successive convex optimization approach for optimizing the quantization noise covariance matrix. In the downlink, the C-RAN architecture can be modeled as a broadcast relay channel. We compare the message-sharing strategy versus compression-based strategy for this setting, and show how compressive sensing and weighted minimum mean-squared error (WMMSE) techniques can be used to solve a network utility maximization problem involving joint user scheduling, BS clustering and beamforming in a user-centric message-sharing C-RAN design. Biography: Wei Yu (S’97-M’02-SM’08-F’14) received the B.A.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada in 1997 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. Since 2002, he has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where he is now Professor and holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Information Theory and Wireless Communications. His main research interests include information theory, optimization, wireless communications and broadband access networks. Prof. Wei Yu currently serves on the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors (2015-17). He is an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer (2015-16). He served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Theory (2010-2013), as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications (2009-2011), as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2004-2007), and as a Guest Editor for a number of special issues for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications and the EURASIP Journal on Applied Signal Processing. He was a Technical Program co-chair of the IEEE Communication Theory Workshop in 2014, and a Technical Program Committee co-chair of the Communication Theory Symposium at the IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) in 2012. He was a member of the Signal Processing for Communications and Networking Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2008-2013). Prof. Wei Yu received a Steacie Memorial Fellowship in 2015, an IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award in 2015, an IEEE ICC Best Paper Award in 2013, an IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award in 2008, the McCharles Prize for Early Career Research Distinction in 2008, the Early Career Teaching Award from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto in 2007, and an Early Researcher Award from Ontario in 2006. He is recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters. Prof. Wei Yu is a Fellow of IEEE. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario.

  • Engineering Career Fair 2016

    Exam Centre, University of Toronto, 255 McCaul Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1W7

    On behalf of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Ontario, Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering at the University of Toronto, Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) York Chapter, Ontario Society Of Professional Engineers (OSPE), ACCES Employment, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Toronto, Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE) Toronto, Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Central Ontario, Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineers (CSME), Air & Waste Management Association (A&WMA) Ontario, Environmental Careers Organization of Canada (ECO Canada), Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists we invite you to the Engineering Career Fair. Day & Time: Thursday, May 12th, 2016 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Location: Exam Centre, University of Toronto 255 McCaul Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1W7 Visit https://engineering-career-fair-2016.eventbrite.ca for more information and registration. If you’re a recent grad looking to kick off your career or an experienced engineer looking for a change in professional scenery, here’s an opportunity! This career fair will host numerous engineering companies, organizations and societies of many fields looking to recruit the right candidate. Polish that resume and cover letter. Do your research because that candidate could be you! Organizations that have shown interest thus far include: • Access Machinery • Adecco • AECOM • Altera (now part of Intel) • Athena Automation • Bondfield Construction • CLEAResult • CPP Investment Board • Deco Automotive is a division Cosma International, operating unit of Magna International • Forge Consulting Group • Husky Injection Molding Systems • Index Exchange • Internat Energy Solutions Canada • Octopus • Nanoleaf • NeuronicWorks • Noranco • Nulogy Corporation • Stelpro • Telus • Thales Canada Inc. • The Nanoleaf Team • Top Hat • Toronto Hydro • Toyota • Tundra Technical Solutions • Ydelay Registration is completely free as is attending the Engineering Career Fair in person. As it stands the list of interested hosting companies will continue to grow and final confirmation updates will be provided to our registered attendees as we approach the final date of the fair. Our team and its cooperating companies are delighted to bring this career-changing opportunity to your attention but if you’re seeking to land that available job position then the last and only step required of you is attending! If interested, we look forward to seeing you there on May 12th. Thank you and have a great day! As an Attendee, how can I prepare for the Engineering Career Fair? Written By: Mayurthen Suppiah (ASME Ontario Section VP) Understand why you are attending. Analyze the career fair you will be entering and ask yourself why you are going? Are you there to land a job? Have an insider look over products specific companies will be showcasing? Begin networking with companies and fellow engineering attendees? Once you answer this question proceed to the following steps. The proceeding article steps will assume you are attending to land a professional engineering work position. Research the career fair. Register for the career fair as an attendee ahead of time and get online inside information of which employer companies will be attending. Figure out which companies appeal to your needs and come prepared. Understand what these companies are looking for, represent and appeal to them. Be prepared to converse and mutualise interests with employers to give yourself an advantage over the traditional applicant who simply enters to provide their CV/resume to any company they visit. Mutualise interests with employers. A lasting impression will work wonders in the employer’s mindset during and after the fair. Be prepared to converse and show the employer that you understand and represent what they are looking for. Conversing includes asking questions back to the employer, showcasing that you are interested in more than just landing the job. Indicating that you care for the employer’s needs and what the employer represents increases your chances of leaving a positive impression. Come prepared and dress professionally. Update your CV/resume and covering letter (if applicable). This information will link your records and experience with the employer’s needs. Ensure that everything is up-to-date and properly edited. Feel free to ask colleagues, career informational advisors and use online guides to assist your cause. A clean image is the best image. Ensure you enter the career fair looking like a professional engineer and not a last minute registration trying to land a quick job. Introduce the proper mindset and be presentable. You can’t leave the career fair any worse than entering it. Relax and be prepared to answer both common and company-specific interview questions. Envision your goal prior to each interaction and execute to the best of your ability. You should be as ready and content with yourself as you can be by this point. Good luck!

  • Time Varying Circuits for Radio Receiver Applications

    Room BA 1210 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto, St. George Campus 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4

    Thursday May 26th, 2016 at 2:10 p.m. Dr. Sudhakar Pamarti, Associate Professor at the University of California, will be presenting “Time Varying Circuits for Radio Receiver Applications”. Speaker: Dr. Sudhakar Pamarti Associate Professor, University of California, Los Angeles Day & Time: Thursday, May 26th, 2016 2:10 p.m. Location: Room BA 1210 Bahen Centre for Information Technology University of Toronto, St. George Campus 40 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Dustin Dunwell Abstract: Sharp, programmable, linear, integrated filters are enabling components for software defined and cognitive radio applications. However, they are difficult to realize: SAW and MEMS based filters are sharp and linear but not very programmable; active filters can be sharp and programmable but are not very linear; sampled charge domain filtering is sharp and programmable but the burden of the linearity is on the front end voltage-current converter. This talk descirbes an alternative approach that uses time-varying (as opposed to time-invariant) circuits to realize sharp, programmable, linear, integrated filters. The technique exploits sampling aliases to effectively realize very sharp, linear filtering prior to sampling. This talk will describe the basics of this time-varying circuit design approach and illustrates its application to radio front-ends and spectrum scanners. Measurement results from recent prototype integrated circuits will also be presented. Biography: Dr. Sudhakar Pamarti is an associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received the Bachelor of Technology degree in electronics and electrical communication engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1995, and the M.S. and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 1999 and 2003, respectively. Prior to joining UCLA, he has worked at Rambus Inc. (‘03-`05) and Hughes Software Systems (‘95-`97) developing high speed I/O circuits and embedded software and firmware for a wireless-in-local-loop communication system respectively. Dr. Pamarti is a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award for developing digital signal conditioning techniques to improve analog, mixed-signal, and radio frequency integrated circuits. Dr. Pamarti serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

  • Internet of Things, building blocks, challenges and research directions

    Room ENG288, 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tuesday May 31st, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. Dr. Fatima Hussain will be presenting “Internet of Things, building blocks, challenges and research directions”. Speaker: Dr. Fatima Hussain Day & Time: Tuesday, May 31st, 2016 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288 Computer Science Department, George Vari Centre for Computing and Engineering, Ryerson University 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 Organizer: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), IEEE Magnetics Chapter, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter and Computer Science Department Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a novel paradigm that is rapidly growing in modern wireless telecommunications. IoT means a world-wide network of interconnected objects uniquely addressable, sustainable and enhance able. It is defined as integration of several technologies, and communications solutions based on standard communication protocols. The main strength of the IoT idea is the high impact it will have on several aspects of everyday-life and behavior of potential users. This promising technology comes with great challenges and leads to numerous research directions for industry as well academia. Biography: Fatima Hussain received her PhD and MASc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering with specialization in “Wireless Communication” from Ryerson University, Canada. She holds MEng. and BSc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with specialization in “Controls System” and “Telecommunication Systems”, respectively from University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, Pakistan. She is acting as a reviewer for IEEE Access journal and IET Journal from couple of years. She is working as a post-doctoral fellow in NCART lab, Ryerson University, on a design and implementation of “Smart Parking System”.

  • Electricity – Displacing Fossil Fuels in Other Sectors

    Room BA 4287, 40 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 2E4

    June 15, 2016 at 6:00 p.m. Paul N. Acchione, Past President and Chair of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, will be presenting “Electricity – Displacing Fossil Fuels in Other Sectors”. Speaker: Paul N. Acchione Past President and Chair of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) Management Consultant at Market Intelligence & Date Analysis Corporation Day & Time: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. A light supper will be served 6:00-6:15 Location: Room BA 4287 Bahen Centre for Information Technology (BA) 40 St. George Street Toronto M5S 2E4 University of Toronto – St. George Campus Organizer: Toronto – IEEE Industry Applications and Power Electronics Joint Chapter Contact: Gail, Email: alavi@ieee.org All IEEE members and non-members are welcome to participate with no admission charge. Please register at: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/39745 Abstract: The seminar discusses which combination of electricity prices and carbon prices are needed to enable electricity to displace fossil fuels in other sectors. · Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions from Ontario’s Electricity Sector · Electricity versus Natural Gas for Home Heating/AC · Electricity versus Gasoline for Transportation · Ontario’s Surplus Carbon-Free Electricity · Potential for Fossil Fuel Displacement by Electricity · Energy Policy Implications Biography: Paul has a B.A.Sc. and M.Eng. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto. Paul is a licensed professional engineer in Ontario and is a member of ASME, ANS, IEEE and ISA and a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. Paul has over 44 years of engineering and management experience in the power generation industry. He worked for 31 years with Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and its predecessor companies. Paul was the 2013-14 President and Chair of the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers (OSPE) and is a volunteer with OSPE’s Energy Task Force. Paul is a Management Consultant at Market Intelligence & Data Analysis Corporation.

  • Optimization and Research: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges

    Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3

    June 20, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at UOIT, will be presenting “Optimization and Research: Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges”. Speaker: Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan Associate Professor Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, UOIT Day & Time: Monday, June 20, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 Organizer: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), IEEE Magnetics Chapter, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter and Computer Science Department Ryerson University Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Abstract: In this research seminar, the speaker will explain his recent optimization research work and accomplishments, categorized in the following two main groups of contributions: theoretical/developmental and practical. The first group will cover his contributions in large-scale optimization, opposition-based computation, many-objective optimization, image-based large-scale visualization and interaction, incremental cooperative coevolution, micro-differential evolution, 3D visualization of many-objective Pareto-front, preserving constraint handling, decision making in high-dimensional objective space, and multi-modal optimization. In the practical category, the speaker will explain several real-world applications to demonstrate effectiveness of optimization in medical image processing, renewable energy systems, forensic science, scheduling, and wireless sensors network. This seminar will be beneficial for faculty and students who conduct ‘research in optimization’ or ‘optimization in research’. Biography: Dr. Shahryar Rahnamayan received his B.Sc. and M.S. degrees both with honors in software engineering. In 2007, he received his Ph.D. degree in the field of evolutionary computation from Systems Design Engineering Department, University of Waterloo. Inspired from opposition-based differential evolution algorithm (ODE), more than 450 papers have been published. Before joining to the faculty of engineering and applied science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada, as a tenure-track faculty member, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada. He was granted tenure earlier and also was promoted to an associate professor position in 2013. His research includes evolutionary computation, image processing, machine learning, and opposition-based soft computing. Dr. Rahnamayan was awarded the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), President’s Graduate Scholarship (PGS), NSERC’s Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship, NSERC’s Industrial R&D Fellowship (IRDF), NSERC’s Visiting Fellowship in Canadian Government Laboratories (VF), and the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) Fellowship for two times. He has published more than 100 papers, Dr. Rahnamayan has received several prestigious research grants, such as, NSERC Discovery Grant and also Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative Fund. He recently visited the Michigan State University (MSU) and BEACON Research Center for two years in order to conduct research on large-scale and multi-objective optimization and visualization.

  • Quantum-confined oxide heteronanostructures: Low-cost design, electronic structure, interfacial properties & device applications for solar energy conversion

    BA 1200, 40 St George Street, Toronto

    June 24, 2016 at 11:10 a.m. Professor Lionel Vayssieres, of Xi’an Jiaotong University, will be presenting “Quantum-confined oxide heteronanostructures: Low-cost design, electronic structure, interfacial properties & device applications for solar energy conversion”. Speaker: Professor Lionel Vayssieres International Research Center for Renewable Energy (IRCRE), Xi’an Jiaotong University Day & Time: Friday, June 24, 2016 11:10 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Location: Room BA 1200 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Junho Jeong Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture. Abstract: Given that conventional technologies which attempt to improve the performance of existing materials and devices for solar energy conversion and solar fuels generation by further development along the same incremental approach are reaching their limits, it is crucial to develop novel materials where bulk limitations are overcome by changing the fundamental underlying physics and chemistry, by e.g. nanostructuring design and quantum confinement effects. As important is a comprehensive fundamental and applied knowledge of their interfacial properties and electronic structure in relation with their structural and optical properties to quantitatively optimize their efficiency. Our strategy to address such crucial requirements is to fabricate materials and devices based on metal oxide (hetero)nanostructures consisting of surface chemistry-controlled quantum dots and rods building-blocks utilizing low-cost and large scale aqueous chemical growth. The electronic structure and structural, optical, and photoelectrochemical properties of such novel visible light-active oxide semiconductors based on vertically oriented quantum rod-arrays have been thoroughly investigated at synchrotron radiation facilities by X-ray spectroscopies. Direct correlation between dimensionality and surface chemistry, bandgap and band edges, orbital character and symmetry, surfaces states, electrical and defect properties have been unraveled and will be demonstrated on various oxide structures of high relevance for this field. An overview of decades of achievements as well as recent advances in novel materials design strategy will be demonstrated along with the latest breakthrough in highly efficient structure for low cost solar hydrogen generation by direct water splitting at neutral pH using the largest free natural resources on Earth, e.g. the Sun and seawater. Biography: Born in 1968, Prof. Vayssieres obtained a MSc in Physical Chemistry in 1990 and a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry in 1995 from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France for his research work on the Interfacial & thermodynamic growth control of metal oxide nanoparticles in aqueous solutions. He has been invited as a visiting scientist at: UT Austin; the UNESCO Centre for Macromolecules & Materials, Stellenbosch University and iThemba LABS, South Africa; the Glenn T. Seaborg Center, Chemical Sciences Division, at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Texas Materials Institute; The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland; the University of Queensland, Australia, and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was an independent scientist at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Tsukuba, Japan for 8 years. He has authored 100+ publications in major international journals and book series cited 9150+ times since the year 2000 (4500+ since 2011, Google Scholar); Top 1% Scientists in Materials Science (Thomson Reuters). All time 8 ESI Highly Cited papers (5 as first and corresponding author) in Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Environment/Ecology. He has given 344 talks in 30 countries: 166 lectures at international conferences/workshops (45 plenary/keynote, 98 invited, 21 contributed, 2 tutorials) including one of the last MRS Spring Symposium X lecture held in San Francisco in 2015 as well as 178 seminars at universities, governmental and/or industrial research institutes. He is currently a full time 1000-Talent Professor, co-founder and scientific director of the International Research Center for Renewable Energy (IRCRE) at Xi’an Jiaotong University, China as well as, since 2003, a guest scientist at the Chemical Sciences Division at Berkeley National Lab and the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanotechnology.

  • Ground Truth Bias in External Cluster Validity Indices

    ENG 106, 245 Church Street, Toronto, ON

    June 28, 2016 at 2:00 p.m. IEEE CIS Distinguished Lecturer James C. Bezdek will be presenting “Ground Truth Bias in External Cluster Validity Indices”. Speaker: James C. Bezdek IEEE CIS Distinguished Lecturer Day & Time: Tuesday, June 28, 2016 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 106, George Vary Engineering & Computing Centre 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 (Intersection of Church and Gould) Map: http://www.ryerson.ca/maps/ Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour, Dr. Glaucio Carvalho, Dr. Alireza Sadeghian Organizers: Signals & Computational Intelligence Chapter, Magnetics Chapter, Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Chapter Abstract: This talk begins with a short review of clustering that emphasizes external cluster validity indices (CVIs). A method for generalizing external pairbased CVIS (e.g., the crisp Rand and Jacard indices) to evaluate soft partitions is described and illustrated. Three types of validation experiments conducted with synthetic and real world labeled data are discussed: “best c” (internal validation with labeled data), and “best I/E” (agreement between an internal and external CVI pair). As is always the case in cluster validity, conclusions based on empirical evidence are at the mercy of the data, so the reported results might be invalid for different data sets and/or clustering models and algorithms. But much more importantly, we discovered during these tests that some external cluster validity indices are also at the mercy of the distribution of the ground truth itself. We believe that our study of this surprising fact is the first systematic analysis of a largely unknown but very important problem ~ bias due to the distribution of the ground truth partition. Specifically, in addition to the well known bias in many external CVIs caused by monotonic dependency on c, the number of clusters in candidate partitions, there are two additional kinds of bias that can be caused by an unusual distribution of the clusters in the ground truth partition provided with labeled data. The most important ground truth bias is caused by imbalance (unequally sized labeled subsets). We demonstrate these effects with randomized experiments on 25 pair-based external CVIs. Then we provide a theoretical analysis of bias due to ground truth for several CVis by relating Rand’s index to the Havrda-Charvat quadratic entropy. Biography: Jim received the PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in 1973. Jim is past president of NAFIPS (North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society), IFSA (International Fuzzy Systems Association) and the IEEE CIS (Computational Intelligence Society): founding editor the Int’l. Jo. Approximate Reasoning and the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems: Life fellow of the IEEE and IFSA; and a recipient of the IEEE 3rd Millennium, IEEE CIS Fuzzy Systems Pioneer, and IEEE technical field award Rosenblatt medals. Jim’s interests: woodworking, optimization, motorcycles, pattern recognition, cigars, clustering in very large data, fishing, co-clustering, blues music, wireless sensor networks, poker and visual clustering. And of course, clustering in big data. Jim retired in 2007, and will be coming to a university near you soon.

  • The Application of Optimization to Model Predictive Control

    Room ENG 288, 245 Church St., Toronto

    July 4, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Dr. Ruth Milman, Assistant Professor at UOIT, will be presenting “The Application of Optimization to Model Predictive Control”. Speaker: Dr. Ruth Milman Assistant Professor – Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering Faculty Applied Science and Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology Day & Time: Monday, July 4, 2016 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG 288 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 Contact: Dr. Maryam Davoudpour Organizers: IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), IEEE Magnetics Chapter, IEEE Instrumentation & Measurement/Robotics & Automation Joint Chapter and Computer Science Department Ryerson University Abstract: Model predictive control (MPC) is the application of an optimal control scheme over a finite horizon. At each sample interval a cost function is minimized over a finite horizon and a resulting open loop controller is calculated. The control for the current sample interval is applied and the whole process is repeated at the next sample interval. By repeating the process at each sample interval, the resulting control scheme, which is technically open loop, inherits the benefits of a closed loop controller. These include some stability and robustness properties. By nature, MPC is computationally intensive and only makes sense when a there are constraints which must be enforced by the system. As would be expected, adding constraints into the system even further intensifies the computational requirements. By nature, MPC is an optimal control strategy. If a true optimal control is computed when solving the minimization problem, then the solution is independent of the choice of the optimizer. It is only when time constraints force the need for suboptimal controls to be used that the actual algorithm plays a role in the quality of the resulting controller. Despite (or because of) this, the choice of optimization schemes plays a critical role in the real time application of MPC for a simple but important reason – the computational time it takes to solve for the optimal solution. MPC is a flexible framework which allows for control in the face of both linear or nonlinear systems, and can be applied to systems with either hard or soft constraints. How each problem is set up is critical to the choice of optimizer. These choices can drastically impact the computational effort which is required to solve for the resulting controller. As such, the choice and application of optimization schemes to MPC is of critical importance to the resulting performance of the systems. Biography: Dr. Ruth Milman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering with the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. She has been with UOIT since June 2007, where she works in the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering, focusing in the field of control theory. Her research interests include optimization and computationally efficient algorithms for model predictive control as well as the application of both linear and nonlinear MPC to autonomous systems. She has worked on path planning for robotic applications in environments with both moving and stationary obstacles. She has worked extensively in the areas of nonlinear and optimal control theory and has developed algorithms for computation of the optimization problem that underlies Model Predictive control. Prior to coming to UOIT she did post-doctoral research at the University of Toronto from 2005 to 2007. Ruth Milman obtained her PhD in 2004 from the Systems Control Group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Toronto, Canada. Her dissertation focused on improving the speed and computational efficiency of a Linear Model Predictive Controller. As part of this she developed a novel algorithm for solving the quadratic programming subproblem in MPC. She obtained her MASC in 1997 from the Systems Control Group in the University of Toronto and her BASc (Honours) in Computer Engineering in 1995 from the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at the University of Toronto.

  • What can physical-layer security do for you?

    Room ENG LG21, 245 Church St., Toronto

    July 4, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Matthieu Bloch, Associate Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, will be presenting “What can physical-layer security do for you?”. Speaker: Matthieu Bloch Associate Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology Day & Time: Monday, July 4, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENG LG21 245 Church St., Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3 All are welcome – No registration necessary Abstract: The conventional approach to ensure confidential communications relies on public-key/private-key protocols, which operate on error-free data after the physical-layer has been established. While the effectiveness of this approach in traditional settings is unquestionable, new systems are emerging where treating confidentiality as an overlay feature of top of reliability may not be the most appropriate solution. In particular, modern wireless networks, which comprise heterogeneous nodes with limited computational and energy resources, would benefit from the integration by design of confidentiality in the physical-layer, especially if this can be done in a cost-effective way. In this talk, we will provide a perspective on what physical-layer security can realistically do for wireless communication systems. Our objective will be not only to review the challenges faced by physical-layer security but also to present some of our recent research activities in the areas of information theory, coding theory, and wireless systems that suggest potential solutions to overcome these challenges. Biography: Matthieu Bloch is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He received the Engineering degree from Supélec, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 2003, the Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science from the Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, France, in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2008. In 2008-2009, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN. Since July 2009, Dr. Bloch has been on the faculty of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and from 2009 to 2013 Dr. Bloch was based at Georgia Tech Lorraine. His research interests are in the areas of information theory, error-control coding, wireless communications, and cryptography. Dr. Bloch is a member of the IEEE and has served on the organizing committee of several international conferences; he was the chair of the Online Committee of the IEEE Information Theory Society from 2011 to 2014. He is the co-recipient of the IEEE Communications Society and IEEE Information Theory Society 2011 Joint Paper Award and the co-author of the textbook Physical-Layer Security: From Information Theory to Security Engineering published by Cambridge University Press.

  • Finding Common Ground: Channel Analysis and Receiver Models for Diffusive Molecular Communication

    July 27, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Adam Noel, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa, will be presenting “Finding Common Ground: Channel Analysis and Receiver Models for Diffusive Molecular Communication”. Speaker: Dr. Adam Noel Postdoctoral Fellow University of Ottawa Day & Time: Wednesday, July 27, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room BA 1200 40 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: Diffusive molecular communication (MC) is a promising strategy for the transfer of information in synthetic networks of “small” devices (on the scale of living cells or smaller). If such devices could communicate, then it would potentially enable applications such as cooperative diagnostics in medicine, bottom-up fabrication in manufacturing, and sensitive environmental monitoring. Results in this domain can also contribute to our understanding of diffusive signaling in natural biological systems and the diseases that develop when the signaling malfunctions. Diffusion based MC for synthetic networks faces challenges such as infinite inter-symbol interference and constrained computational resources in “simple” transceivers, but also interesting opportunities such as the possibility to manipulate the channel response via chemical means. This presentation highlights our contributions to the modeling and analysis of diffusion-based MC systems, including derivations of the channel impulse response and the development of simulation tools. We describe our recent work to find a unifying analytical framework for the two most common but distinct receiver models, where molecules are either absorbed by the receiver surface or passively diffuse through it. We also discuss some of our on-going work to bridge the gap between the realism of existing analytical models and the availability of relevant experimental data. Biography: Adam Noel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ottawa. His Ph.D. and postdoctoral work are on the study of molecular communication, where he has focused on channel modeling, system design, and simulation methods. He has received the support of NSERC Postgraduate Scholarships and is currently holding an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship. He also received a Best Paper Award at IEEE ICC 2016. Dr. Noel received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2009 from Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, and both the M.A.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of British Columbia in 2011 and 2015, respectively. In 2013 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Digital Communication at Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen, Germany.

  • Artificially Intelligent Imaging (AI2): System to Circuit to Device Level Implementations of Smart CMOS Imaging, A Generalized Approach for Non-Application Specific Intelligence Design (NAS-ID)

    Room ENGLG 05 George Vari Engineering Building

    August 11, 2016 at 1:00 p.m. Dr. Faycal Saffih, Department of Electrical Engineering, UAE University, will be presenting “Artificially Intelligent Imaging (AI2): System to Circuit to Device Level Implementations of Smart CMOS Imaging, A Generalized Approach for Non-Application Specific Intelligence Design (NAS-ID)”. Speaker: Dr. Faycal Saffih Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering UAE University Day & Time: Thursday, August 11, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Location: Room ENGLG 05 George Vari Engineering Building Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ryerson University Contact: Dimitri Androutsos Abstract: In this talk we will present the development of intelligence (vs intelligent) implementations from top-down and bottom-up approaches and from Electrical engineering design and Biological Biomimicry to Solid-state Physics prediction. Smart CMOS imaging is the application of choice where these multi-disciplinary studies interacts to suggest a novel approach for research to design intelligent devices needed in a verity of advanced technological devices and systems for a variety of applications such as biomedical and renewables systems and devices to name a few. Biography: Dr. Fayçal Saffih (IEEE Member since 2000) received the B.Sc. (with Best Honors) degree in Solid-State Physics from the University of Sétif-1, Sétif, Algeria, in 1996, the M.Sc. degree in Digital Neural networks from Physics Department, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Smart CMOS Imaging from Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada. Taking a decade journey between academia and industry, Dr. Saffih enriched his experience multidimensionally spanning Microelectronics from devices up-to systems, and industry from R&D department to Entrepreneurship start-up, all of which from West USA (OR) to Singapore’s prestigious A*star Agency for Science, Technology and Research. Recently, Dr. Saffih endeavored into renewable energy research and business starting from Stanford certification in 2013 and currently undertaking an Online program from Renewables Academy (RENAC), Germany Dr. Faycal Saffih is currently an assistant professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the UAE University and a regular visiting scholar at the University of Waterloo, University of Alberta among others. His research is on intelligence extraction and implementation on devices and systems particularly smart CMOS image sensors.