Scientists around the world are focused on fighting the coronavirus. The challenges are innumerable, especially since it is a disease that stills little known and whose information is not solid yet. Given this scenario, professors and researchers from different areas of knowledge at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), Brazil, led by Prof. Joel Rodrigues (Fellow, IEEE), created a research and innovation project that involves the administration of a field hospital in the State of Piauí, installed at the capital, Teresina, an unprecedented fact in Brazil.

The “Research and Innovation Project in Public Health Management: Strategies for Facing the Covid-19 Pandemic”, led by Joel Rodrigues, that works in the area of Computer Engineering, Communications, Internet of Things and eHealth Technologies, and includes the areas of Medicine, Law, Pharmacy, Electrical Engineering, Administration, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

The Project is a response to the needs of the Piauí State Government, which, anticipating the cases increasing of Covid-19, decided to install a field hospital to reinforce the number of hospital beds available to the population and for being able to receive patients from all over the state. Thus, an agreement between the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI), Brazil; the Cultural and Research Promotion, Teaching, Extension, and Innovation Foundation (FADEX); and the Piauí State Health Secretary (SESAPI). FADEX is a support foundation that provides technical and administrative provision for the project execution and it is funded by SESAPI.

Unlike other Brazilian states, which hired outside companies to manage field hospitals, in Piauí, an innovative project that, in addition for taking care of the management part, also meets other needs, such as conducting research for better understand the virus and monitoring cases for scientific purposes. The State Field Hospital opened last May 2020 and it is expected to last 4 months, according to the evolution forecasts of COVID-19 in the State.

The fact of having researchers from various scientific areas adds a lot to society. Medical researchers, for example, directly address COVID-19’s clinical treatment protocols. In mathematics, intelligent models are used to perform predictions about the evolution of the disease in population, which is of great value for public managers, who need to make decisions regarding the use of resources and containment measures. Such data were of fundamental importance to prevent the collapse in the health system in Piauí.

In the technology area, the construction of pulmonary ventilators and the use of artificial intelligence to carry out diagnostic studies based on imaging exams and clinical data of patients are performed. The development of transparent masks to facilitate communication, through the observation of lip movement, especially concerning hearing impaired and facilitating the interpersonal communication.

The research team is also working in the legal and governance area, which encompasses law and hospital administration and management.

The inclusion of the State Field Hospital in the Project turns research more efficient because it is a storehouse of the disease data. In the other hand, it ensures a more transparent and optimized administration for society. It is worth mentioning that the hospital has a website daily updated, with information about hospitalizations, discharges, and deaths. In addition to information on the procedures adopted, graphics about the patients evolution, human resources, and details of financial execution are presented. The hospital’s website, the only one in a field hospital unit with these characteristics, can be assessed here (in Portuguese): http://www.hcepiaui.org.

Thanks to the work of UFPI university researchers, it was possible to materialize such a complete system to combat the pandemic and saving lives. The hospital has 103 beds, including clinical and stabilization beds, and the proof that all the effort is obtaining good results comes from the fact that, for a pandemic disease, more than 90% of the admitted patients have already left the hospital and the deaths are about 1.5%. This is a real example of engineers and other scientists working hard, along with more 230 professionals, during this pandemic period for saving lives against COVID-19

The RCCC for Latin American Region, in its 2019 version, took place in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil from November 14th-15th 2019. Representatives of the Latin America chapters and ComSoc executives attended this meeting to elaborate the program to be developed during the next year by ComSoc in Latin America region.

During the RCCC several presentations were performed: welcome presentation, Latin America director’s report, young professional global overview, membership development report, distinguished lecturer tour updates, social networks challenges and progress, global communication newsletter report and chapter reports.

Annually, two awards are given to ComSoc members from the LA region to recognize their valuable work: the Latin America Region Young Professional Award and the Latin America Region Distinguished Service.

2019 winners will be invited to the Awards Ceremony to be organized in the Regional Chapter Chair Congresses (RCCC), November 14 and 15, 2019 in Salvador, Brazil.

I) Latin America Region Young Professional Award

Winner: Nury Gabriela Ramirez Cely

Nury Gabriela Ramirez currently works at Continental Automotive as a Technical Project Leader for the Body and Security unit of the Interior Division. She is in charge of a global team for the development of door control units. She worked at Cisco Systems as an Advanced Services Program Manager leading the effective delivery of routers and switches solutions to support the main internet service provider from Mexico, Megacable to optimize their network. She had 9 years of experience at Intel working for Intel Xeon based projects from being a Hardware Design Engineer up to an Engineering Program Manager. }

She is a Senior Member of IEEE with leadership role managing women’s technical outreach and professional awareness projects.

II) Latin America Region Distinguished Service Award

Winner: Ricardo A. Veiga

Ricardo A. Veiga is an Associate Professor at University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Faculty of Engineering. He was responsible for Postgraduate Studies and he is currently responsible for Planning and Management Control at the Faculty of Engineering, UBA. He was also Member of the Board of Directors of the Faculty of Engineering, UBA.
He graduated from UBA as an Electronics Engineer (six-year degree program), and pursued postgraduate studies in Japan, and UADE University.
He has also been working in Communications industry for 25 years, participating in the start-up of several companies. He has experience in leadership positions in mobile communications companies and service providers. Throughout his professional career he accomplished many achievements, including the start up of the largest private satellite network in Argentina, the strategic plan for launching a cellular telephone company, and the design and construction of world class contact centers. He was also involved with the development of special wireless data communications systems for industry applications. He has deployed his own consulting company. And he is leading the start up of a company that use the cellular network for mobile banking. Also, he was responsible for many added value services, as well as customer service, loyalty and retention programs.
He is member of the ComSoc’s Board of Governors as Member-at-Large (2017–2019). He is also member of the ComSoc’s Finance Standing Committee and the Technical Committees Recertification Standing Committee.
He was member of the ComSoc’s Board of Governors as Regional Director (2004–2005), increasing the number of Chapters by 17% and Student Branch Chapters by 100% in the region (38% of the total worldwide. He has led the Training Committee within ComSoc’s Wireless Certification Program (WCET). He was GOLD Coordinator and member of the LA Region Advisory Committee. He also served as Chair, Vice-chair and Treasurer of the Communications Chapter (Argentina Section). As Chair of the local ComSoc Chapter, he received the Chapter Achievement Award.
He also received the IEEE RAB Achievement Award, IEEE Third Millennium Medal, IEEE Richard E. Merwin Scholarship, and Larry K. Wilson Regional Student Award, among others.
He has become Student Member of the IEEE in 1980; he is a volunteer since 1985, and Senior Member since 2001.

Other IEEE positions:
GLOBAL COMMITTEES/BOARDS: He was member of the MGA Member Benefits Portfolio Advisory Committee, the MGA Individual Benefits & Services Committee (IB&SC), and the GOLD Committee.
REGIONAL: He was the Region 9 IEEE GOLD Coordinator.
SECTIONS/CHAPTERS: He served as Chair, Secretary, Treasurer and Membership Development Coordinator of the IEEE Argentina Section. He founded three local Chapters and one Joint Chapter in Argentina Section.
STUDENT BRANCHES: He was Chair and Vice-chair of the University of Buenos Aires Student Branch, and also founder & Chair of one of its Chapters.

Congratulations for Nury and Ricardo for this important achievement.

IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals Webinar

“Network Softwarization: State of the Art” 

Register Now

Speaker: Richard Cziva
ESnet, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US

Abstract:

Network softwarization is actively revolutionizing how networks are designed and operated to deliver services with greater agility and cost effectiveness. During the last 10 years, softwarization has been presented for different network layers and domains, ranging from high-level, open-source control planes to programmable data planes, managing optical line systems, datacenters, cloud and 5G edge networks, among others. While this research field has been very active, there is no sign of slowing down: many challenges remain unsolved, while new ones are being presented continuously.

This talk will be a high-level, general overview of research and development efforts on network softwarization in an outside of IEEE Communication Society. The speaker, who is currently a software engineer of the world’s fastest science network (ESnet, a multi-100Gbit/s transcontinental network), will present his own view of the currently trending topics in academia and industry and highlight some possible research directions in this area.

Dear ComSoc members in Latin America,

Annually, two awards are given to ComSoc members from the LA region to recognize their valuable work: the Latin America Region Young Professional Award and the Latin
America Region Distinguished Service.

Candidates for awards must reside in the Latin America Region at the time of the publication or activity for which the awards is made and must be regular or student members of the IEEE Communications Society. 2019 winners will be invited to the Awards Ceremony to be organized in the Regional Chapter Chair Congresses (RCCC) 2019’s.

Note the deadline and requirements for the nomination.

I) Latin America Region Young Professional Award

IEEE ComSoc Members evidencing of an outstanding and promising professional record in the field of communications.

Eligibility: Professionals in communications and related fields in their first five years of their careers following a professional degree. Latin America background is required.

Nominations: Nomination should include a supporting statement as well as contact information of the nominee and of the nominator. Self-nominations are accepted.

Prize: Plaque and US $ 1,000.00

II) Latin America Region Distinguished Service Award

IEEE ComSoc Members evidencing significant contribution to the development of IEEE Communications Society activities in the Latin America Region.

Eligibility: Individual who have significantly contributed to the development of IEEE Communications Society activities in the Latin America Region.

Nominations: Nomination should include a supporting statement as well as contact information of the nominee and of the nominator. Self-nominations are accepted.

Prize: Plaque and US 1,000.00

Nominations should be sent to:

Carlos Andrés Lozano, calozanog@ieee.org

Deadline for nomination: September 29nd, 2019

Last 27th of February, we had our first webinar titled: Bringing the Power of AI to IoT, by Dennis Zarate. This webinar, organized by the Industry Relations Committee of ComSoc LA Region and ComSoc Peru Chapter, was a success thanks to the support of the YP ComSoc committee and the participation of the audience, mostly young professionals.

Topics covered in the webinar were the following:

– Data value chain in IoT
– Importance massive IoT of LPWAN technologies (Sigfox, LoRa,NB-IoT and LTE-M).
– Power of IoT an AI
– Use cases and opportunities of IOT & AI
– Challenges of IoT & AI in implementation

The talk had many interesting questions by audience about AI and IoT applications in industry and business models.

About the speaker:

Dennis Zarate Torres obtained a Master in Business Administration MBA CENTRUM PUCP, International Master in Leadership at EADA Barcelona-Spain, Telecommunications Engineer at Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), with internship studies at Peking University China (Doing Business in China) and the Polytechnic School at São Paulo University.

He works as Solutions Architect at America Movil Claro Perú, and President to the technical commission of Internet of Things at  Engineers College of Peru at the chapter Electronic Engineering chapter and was president of the IEEE COMSOC PUCP in 2010. Specialized in Big Data, Data Science and IoT solutions.

During 2018, in the region we had 5 DLT (Distinguished Lecturer Tour), we thank Pedro Aguilera, DLT Coordinator, for the efforts made.

Yi Qian

From August 5th through 11^th, Ph.D. Yi Qian visited three Latin America Chapters of IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, as part of the ComSoc Distinguished Lecturer Tour (DLT) program. His keynote lectures were:

1. “Security for 5G Wireless Networks”.
2. “Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures”
3. “Challenges and Solutions for LTE and  5G Vehicular Communications”

Professor Qian arrived Santiago, Chile in the early morning of August 6, 2018. He was welcomed by ComSoc Chile Chapter Chair Diego Dujovne and the previous Chair Pedro Aguilera.  In afternoon, hi gave the lecture “Security for 5G Wireless Networks” was at Universidad Diego Portales. More than 80 people attended his lecture, with enthusiastic responses, questions and answers.

In Bolivia, professor Qian arrived La Paz, in August 7, 2018. Sandra Hidalgo, ComSoc Bolivia Chair, received him at airport in the La Paz International Airport. Yi gave two lectures in the same afternoon, in Hotel Casa Grande, the titles of my lecturers are “Smart Grid Communication Infrastructures” & “Security for 5G Wireless Networks”. More than 60 professionals, professors and students attended  the lectures.

In August 8^th, professor Qian arrived Cochabamba, Bolivia. Participated as a distinguished lecturer in the International Conference on telecommunications, in the Universidad Privada Boliviana, with his lecture “Challenges and Solutions for LTE and 5G Vehicular Communications” , about 40 people attended his lecture.

In Lima, Peru, professor Qian participated as a distinguished lecturer  at IEEE INTERCON 2018. During his first night in Lima, on August 9^th, he was at the gala dinner of the congress sharing his experiences with other Distinguished Speakers belonging to sister societies of the IEEE, and in the company of Fredy Campos, ComSoc Peru Chapter Chair.

The next day in the morning, professor Qian had a tour of the ancient ruins of Pachacamac, about 40 kilometers southeast of Lima. His Keynote Lecture at INTERCON 2018, “Security for 5G Wireless Networks” was in the afternoon, at Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, over 100 people, students and professionals,  attended his lecture. Finally, in the Friday evening, Yi had a warm welcome from the three ComSoc Peru Chapter Officers, Fredy Campos, Carlos Velasquez, and Esmeralda Asurza with a lively night show, the best Peruvian folklore on stage in town.

Sudhir Dixit

Professor Sudhir Dixit visited the sections of Ecuador and Colombia during the month of September, with the keynote conference “SDN, NFV and Cloud Computing for 5G Beyond Systems”.

In Ecuador professor Dixit visited 4 cities (Guayaquil, Cuenca, Quito and Ibarra), between the days of September 15 to 19, more than 500 people were part of this experience, thanks to the support of the student branches ESPOL, ETCM, ESPE and UTN .

In Colombia, he gave the lecture in the cities of Cali and Bogotá. The conference addressed a description of the main new RAN technologies for 5G systems. Subsequently, an introduction of how a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum bands could jointly provide the expect ed network performance. This includes a general description of the LAA, LWA, LWIP and eLWA technologies.

Fawzi Behman

Professor Fawzi Behmann visited 3 ComSoc Chapters in Morelos, Cuernavaca city, Puebla, Puebla city, and Monterrey, Monterrey city. He delivered two keynote lectures: “Disruptive Internet of Things – Evolution, Applications Architecture and Future Trends” and “Developing IoT Solutions for Smart Homes / Buildings, Smart Car and Smart Energy”.

On September 22, the day of his arrival, he visited Mexico City. Next day, he visited the magical town of Tlayacapan and the city of Cuernavaca. On September 24th, he gave his first lecture on “Understanding Pre-IoT, IoT and Collaborative IoT (C-IoT) Model” at the National Institute of Electricity and Clean Energies (INEEL). After a general introduction to IoT and a broad vision on collaborative IoT, professor Fawzi focused on healthcare and wellness. He presented current and emerging solutions at hospitals, clinics, care centers and homes. He showed several examples of some of the adjacent technologies such as 3D, Robot, Drone and Wearables. Finally, the talk concluded with some of the factors and challenges to deliver scalable solutions, delivering better quality of services and experience.

On September 25, professor Fawzi Behmann moved to Puebla. There, he participated as a Distinguished lecturer in the “10th Seminar on Electronics and Advanced Design, 2018”, with the keynote lecture “Developing IoT Solutions for Smart Homes/Buildings, Smart Car and Smart Energy” in the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE). The session was focused on smart homes/building along with smart energy and smart car exploring current and emerging solutions. The lecture covered architectural solution building blocks, including sensing, aggregation, and data analytics. Examples of some of the enabling technologies such as video surveillance, and drone were explored.

On the 27th and 28th he gave the lectures: “Understanding Pre-IoT, IoT and Collaborative IoT (C-IoT) Model” and “Developing IoT Solutions for Smart Homes / Buildings, Smart Car and Smart Energy” at the Technological and Higher Studies Institute of Monterrey (ITESM). Fawzi Behmann challenged the public with a provocative question: Is there a common vision for IoT, 5G and Virtualization by 2020? The answer to the question could be found on his idea of disruptive Internet of things. The talks concluded with “some of the factors and challenges to deliver scalable solutions, delivering better quality of services and experience.” To get there, these include development platforms, 5G, virtualization and security.

Adlen Ksentini

Professor Adlen Ksentini visited 3 sections of the IEEE in the cities of Montevideo (Uruguay), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Valparaíso (Chile), with the conference “Network Slicing in 5G”.

The talk was given in a tutorial way in order to allow the attendees to fully understand why Network Slicing is needed, and which technologies are involved. Adlen started by presenting the requirement of 5G as specified by 3GPP, ETSI, NGMN and 5GPPP group. Then, he introduced the enabling technologies:  SDN, NFV and Cloud computing. For each technology, Adlen  gave a short history, concepts, challenges and how it can enable 5G. In addition, he gave for each technology, some research results obtained by my team and some research directions. Finally, he concluded the presentation by defining Network Slicing, how it could be achieved and research directions.

Professor Ksentini arrived to Montevideo on September 27^th where I was hosted by Dr. Gustavo Giannattasio, the chair of Uruguay Chapter. He did his first talk on September 28^th, during the talk the audience was composed by students, academic faculty members, and people from industry, they represented more than 50 persons. People from industry were mainly from the local Network Operator, and were very active by asking several questions related to 5G. After the presentation, they went for a dinner with the local chapter officers.

His second talk was on October 1 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the National Technological University, During the talk the audience was composed by students, academic faculty members and people from industry, they represented around 50 persons. Like in Montevideo, the people from Industry are mainly from local network operators. Several questions have been asked related to 5G, which show the importance of this topic worldwide. After the presentation, they went for a dinner with the local chapter members.

On October 2^nd,  professor Ksentin has been received by Prof. Diego Dujovne, the local chair of the Cosmoc Chile section. The 3^rd October we went to Valparaiso University, where he did his third talk. After the presentation, they went for a launch with the faculty members.

Joel Rodrigues

After attending the IEEE LATINCOM 2018, in Guadalajara, Mexico; Ph.D. Joel Rodrigues visited three sections: Uruguay, Chile, and Bolivia, in November 17-23. His lecture topic was “Internet of things (IoT) and Sensor Networks”.

In Uruguay, professor Rodrigues visited the University of Montevideo and presented the lecture by November 19th. They had an interesting discussion regarding IoT on Smart Cities and related initiatives where the colleagues are interested and participating. We were received by the team from the IEEE ComSoc Uruguay Chapter, Gustavo Giannattasio (Chair), Rafael Sotelo, and Juan Pechiar. In the same day, he traveled to Santiago de Chile.

In the first day in Chile, he was received by Pedro Aguilera, the former Chair and current Vice-Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Chile Chapter. At November 20th, Joel  was accompanied by Diego Dujovne (the Chapter Chair  ), and he was honored to present a keynote at a national event called Congreso TIC 2018 (ICT Congress 2018). This congress is a joint organization from Universidad Diego Portales (that hosted the event, in Santiago), Universidad Técnica Federico Santamaría, Universidad de Concepción, and Universidad de la Frontera.

The 3rd country  was Bolivia. Professor Rodrigues arrived in Cochabamba at Nov. 21st, and was received by the students of the IEEE ComSoc Bolivia Student Chapter, by Sandra Hidalgo (the Chapter Chair) and Eduardo Trigo. He attended the IEEE event organized in Bolivia, BETCON (Bolivian Engineering and Technology Congress), and presented two keynotes, one focusing on IoT and other addressing eHealth and mobile health technologies. BETCON 2018  was organized by the Bolivia Students Chapter from the Universidad Católica Boliviana “San Pablo”.

Call for Papers and Workshops – IEEE Healthcom 2019

IEEE Comsoc has chosen Bogotá as the venue for the 2019 IEEE International Conference on E-health
Networking, Application & Services – Healthcom.

Bogotá is the capital of Colombia and one of the most dynamic cities in Latin America. Is a Cosmopolitan city of 8 million inhabitants that has positioned itself as one of the main business centers of Latin America. Is part of the Best Cities Global Alliance and has the main airport in South America, according to Skytrax. The quality of the health institutions of Bogotá stands out, 7 of the 44 best hospitals in Latin America are located in the city.

Colombia has successfully positioned itself as the third largest medical devices market in Latin America and Bogotá represents 75% of the sales, with a growing local industry.
We hope that both local academy and industry will take active participation in IEEE Healthcom 2019. Papers will be reviewed by an international technical committee under the IEEE standard procedure.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Accepted papers must be presented in oral sessions, this is mandatory to be published in the conference proceedings (IEEE Xplore database, including ISBN).

TOPICS FOR GENERAL SYMPOSIUM

We encourage the submission of original, unpublished research focused on (but not limited to) the following topics of interest:

Medical, Biomedical and Health Informatics

• Electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic prescription
• HL-7
• Interoperability for personal Health systems
• Data preprocessing, cleansing, management and mining
• Data quality assessment and improvement
• Medical imaging
• Computer-aided detection, hypothesis generation and diagnosis
• Evidence-based medicine
• Evolutionary and longitudinal patient and disease models
• Clinical workflow
• Medication adherence and health monitoring
• Smart health and big data
• Deep IoT analysis
• M2M
• Methods for inputting, transmitting and processing data for e-health
• Multimedia e-health data exchange services

Services and Applications

• e-Health services/applications for physical and mental health; for example, in acute care, chronic care, mental health care, biomedical engineering, rehabilitation, prosthetics, elderly/nursing care, smart homes and hospitals, and rural/wilderness practice.
• e-Health services/applications for sports and exercise; for example, in training prescription and feedback, concussion detection/monitoring, life-logging and fitness monitoring.
• e-Health services/applications for public health; for example, disease prevention, pandemic preparedness, epidemiological interventions and smart cities.
• e-Health services/applications for extreme environments; for example, in firefighting, disaster response, evacuation assistance, medical triage, space travel/exploration, deep diving and deep sea exploration
• m-Health applications and software
• Quality of experience (QoE) with e-Health services/applications.
• Security, privacy and trust for e-Health services/applications.
• Emerging cloud-based services/applications including health clouds/grids
• Usability of e-Health systems and devices.

E-Health Solutions to Challenging Problems

• Vector Borne Diseases (Dengue, Malaria, Leaishmaniasis)
• Neglected Diseases
• Telemedicine for rural area
• Aging problems and intelligent care
• Bioinformatics and precision medicine
• Smart agriculture for human health
Communications and networking
• Converged networks and applications
• Network and services virtualization
• Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE)
• Software Defined Networking (SDN) and network management
• Delay-tolerant, fault-tolerant and reliable communication
• Cognitive communication for medical bands
• In-hospital networking, body area networking and cloud-integrated networking
• Network Function Virtualization
• Nanoscale/molecular communications
• Network coding and error detection/correction
• Resilience and robustness
• Security

System Research

• Standardization
• Requirements Engineering
• Social technological alignment
• E-Health and m-health governance
• Quality of care
• Business modeling
• Supply chain management
• Anti-counterfeiting
• Smart Pharmaceuticals
• Global e-health strategies
• Tagging and tracking
• Work flow
• Patient flow

TOPICS FOR AGING SYMPOSIUM

BIG DATA FOR HEALTH SYSTEMS

• Big data models, theories, algorithms, approaches, Solutions
• Machine learning, data mining, web mining, and graph mining
• Deep Learning for Heatlh

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING

• Wearable sensors for patients monitoring
• Virtual rehabilitation (stroke, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, multiple sclerosis)
• Telemedicine for aging
• Gait analysis (arm swing, balance, posture control)
• Eye-tracking
• Falls (detection, tracking)
• m-Health
• Neuromodulation

PAPER SUBMISSION

We invite authors to submit high-quality full papers reporting original and novel research results on all above topics.

Papers must be written in English, unpublished and not submitted elsewhere. Full papers must be formatted as the standard IEEE double-column conference template and submitted exclusively using the link http://healthcom2019.ieee-healthcom.org/author-guidelines.

Maximum 6 pages are allowed for each paper, including all illustrations and references.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission: May 3rd, 2019
Workshop proposals: February 15, 2019
Notification: July 07, 2019
Camera-ready and author registration: August 09, 2019

CALL FOR WORKSHOPS

In addition to exciting technical symposia, tutorials and exhibitions, IEEE Healthcom 2019 will feature a series of half and full-day workshops and invites the submission of workshop proposals. The aim of the conference workshops is to emphasize emerging topics not specifically covered in the main symposia. Workshops should highlight current topics related to technical and business issues in health technology, networking and Computing for Health, and should include a mix of regular papers, invited presentations and panels that encourage the participation of attendees in active discussion.

Workshop Proposal Format

Each workshop proposal (maximum 5 pages) must include (please follow the following order in your proposal):

• Title of the workshop

• Workshop Organizers (names, affiliation and contact information), limiting up to 2 workshop chairs for half-day workshop and 3 workshop chairs for full-day workshop

• Scope and topics of the workshop (max 1 page)

• Rationale (max 1 page)

a. Why is the topic current and important?
b.Why the workshop may attract a significant number of submissions of good quality?
c. Why the workshop may attract a large number of attendees, in addition to the authors?
d. Why the workshop differs from others; i.e., related workshops and conferences of similar topic?

• A short biography of the organizers (up to 200 words)

• Names of potential participants, such as program committee members and invited speakers (indication that speakers accepted to participate is a plus)

• Planned format of the workshop, including:

– Duration of the workshop: Half-day, Full-day and tentative schedule
– Preferred day of workshop:
– Number of refereed papers, hot topic sessions, keynotes, panels
– Unique, creative and novel workshops formats are strongly encouraged

• Draft Call for Papers (max 1 page)

• A description of the publicity and promotion plan

• Workshop potential website address (if available at the time of the proposal – will be required later if the workshop proposal is accepted)

Workshop Preparation and Organization Timeline

Proposal Submission Deadline: 15 February 2019
Notification of Selection: 15 March 2019
Website for each workshop on: 15 April 2019
Deadline for workshop paper submission: 15 July 2019
Acceptance/rejection announcement: 16 August 2019
Final workshop papers due: 09 September 2019

Call for papers – IEEE ColCom 2019

IEEE has chosen Barranquilla as the venue for the 12th IEEE Colombian Conference on Communications and Computing COLCOM 2019. This conference is the most important in Colombia that aims to show the progress and development of the academic, scientific and industrial usage of the different areas of telecommunications and computing. In this version, the main subject is “Internet of Everything”.

During the past decade, the city has gained national and international recognition for its potential to become one of the most important cities in Latin America and the Caribbean in terms of logistics, manufacturing and creative industry. Barranquilla, main city of the Caribbean region of Colombia, known as a commercial, service and cultural hub, offers a vivid and dynamic environment for creation of innovative solutions, a wide variety of economic sectors, including both small and large companies as well as agricultural industry, a growing ICT ecosystem and high quality universities.

We hope that both local academy and industry will take active participation in IEEE COLCOM 2019. Papers will be reviewed by an international technical committee under the IEEE standard procedure. Accepted papers must be presented in oral sessions, this is mandatory to be published in the conference proceedings (IEEE Xplore database, including ISBN).

TOPICS FOR COMMUNICATIONS SYMPOSIUM

We encourage the submission of original, unpublished research focused on (but not limited to) the following topics of interest:

WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING

Cellular systems, 4G, 5G and beyond
Wireless body area networks
Femtocell networks and traffic offloading
Wireless mesh networks
Flow and congestion control
Mobility, handoff, and location management
Advanced equalization, channel estimation, and synchronization
Modulation, coding, and diversity techniques
Antennas, smart antennas, and space-time processing
MIMO, multi-user MIMO, and massive MIMO
Cross-layer design and physical-layer based network issues
Radio resource allocation and interference management

IoT AND SMART CITIES

Future Internet Research Experimentation for Internet of Things
Machine to Machine (M2M) and cellular-based protocols for Internet of Things
Cloud computing, Edge Computing / Fog Computing integration with Internet of Things
Software Defined Networks for Internet of Things
Personal Area Networks for IoT
Smart healthcare and e-health systems
Smart buildings and smart homes
Smart education
Smart environment
Smart city for special needs
QoS and QoE of smart city systems, applications, and services
Sensing, Actuating and IoT for smart cities
Industry 4.0

CYBERSECURITY

Safety and security systems
Anonymity, anonymous communications
Authorization and access control
Availability and survivability of secure services and systems
Cloud and distributed applications security
Computer and network forensics
Cryptography (Cryptographic implementations for networking)
Firewall technologies; intrusion detection, localization, and prevention
Mobile and wireless networks security
Operating systems and applications security and analysis tools
Trust models and certificate handling
Virtual private networks and group security
Vulnerabilities, exploitation tools and virus analysis
Web, e-commerce, and m-commerce security

NEXT GENERATION NETWORKS

Converged networks and applications
Optical communications and networking
Future Internet and next-generation networking architectures
Network and services virtualization
Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE) Software Defined Networking (SDN)
Network Functions Virtualization (NFV)
Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio networks
Traffic measurement, analysis, modeling, visualization, and engineering
Cloud, edge, fog and mist computing and networking
Green computing, networking and energy efficiency
Communication QoS, Reliability and Modeling

TOPICS FOR VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM

VEHICULAR COMMUNICATIONS, NETWORKS, AND TELEMATICS

Intelligent vehicle-to-infrastructure integration
Smart traffic system operations
Smart mobility for Pedestrian and bicyclist safety
5G technologies for connected vehicles
Congestion and awareness control in vehicular networks
Security, privacy, liability, and dependability in vehicular networks
Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET);
Broadband Internet services;
Cellular/VANET interworking;
Channel models and mobility models for vehicular networks; Cloud-mobility;
Connected vehicles;
Context aware service and applications;
Data traffic offloading;
DSRC;
Information distribution services;
Interaction between intra- and inter-vehicular communications;
In-vehicle communication & networking;
IP mobility;
Mobility estimation;
Multi-channel/multi-antenna/multi-transceiver systems for vehicular communication;
Multimedia applications and messaging;
Multimedia over VANETs, and infotainment;
Network design for V2X communications;
OBU and RSU communication systems;
Prototype, measurements, and field tests;
Quality-of-experience;
Ultra-low latency and ultra-high reliability communications for road safety applications;
V2X communications, V2X for automated driving, applications, and security.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES, VEHICULAR ELECTRONICS, AND INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION

Heterogeneous network infrastructures for ITS;
Smart mobility and transportation
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs);
Vehicle power systems;
Vehicle stability controls;
Vehicle traction power control/conversion;
Wireless charging;
Wireless/mobile system applications for transportation control and routing;
Wireless/mobile systems for multi-modal transportation. Autonomous driving technologies;
Digital maps and location technologies; Drive-by-wire controls; Electromagnetic valve controls; Emulation/simulation of ITS applications; Autonomous vehicles; Cooperative ITS; Engine control modules; Green ITS navigation for people and freight; HCCI controls; Human factors and human machine interface (HMI) for smart cars; In-car electronics and embedded integration; Intelligent transportation systems; Mobile/wireless systems for transportation logistics; Multimedia service provisioning and vehicle traffic management; Pedestrian protection via VANET;

SPECTRUM SHARING, SPECTRUM MANAGEMENT, AND COGNITIVE RADIO

Algorithms for TV whitespace usage;
Applications of cognitive radio networks (e.g., for 5G, heterogeneous networks);
Characterization of cognitive wireless networks;
Cognitive highly time-variant networks;
Cognitive radio networks;
Cognitive radio protocols and algorithms;
Cognitive radio prototypes;
Cooperative sensing;
Co-existence of primary and secondary radio networks; Dynamic spectrum access;
Economic aspects of spectrum sharing (e.g., pricing, auction) in cognitive radio networks;
Energy-efficient spectrum sensing;
Game theory for cognitive radio networks;
Interference management;
Light-licensing;
Machine learning techniques for cognitive radio systems; MIMO/OFDM-based cognitive radio;
Radio environment modeling;
Spectrum aggregation;
Spectrum database (or geolocation database);
Spectrum measurements and monitoring;
Spectrum mobility;
Spectrum policies; Spectrum sensing;
Unlicensed and licensed shared access.

TOPICS FOR COMPUTERS SYMPOSIUM

BIG DATA

Big data models, theories, algorithms, approaches, solutions
Machine learning, data mining, web mining, and graph mining
Big data for communications and networking
Big data integration and visualization
Big data architecture, infrastructure and platforms
Big data storage and management
Privacy protection, trust in Big Data
Big data for smart cities and smart homes
Image and signal processing
Artificial intelligence
Data privacy
Location based Information Systems

HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING

Performance evaluation and modeling
Cluster computing
GPGPUs and FPGAs acceleration
Simulation
Computer architecture
Applications (e.g. Bioinformatics, neuroscience, astrophysics)

COMPUTER AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

Agile Methodologies
Methods and software process
Quality and assessment of products and processes
Software Testing
Software Product Line
Ontologies applied to software engineering
Software architectures
Information Retrieval
Global Software Development
Model-driven software engineering
Information security
Knowledge management in software engineering
Requirements engineering
Simulation
Governance and Organizational Aspects of Computing
Social impact of Computing
UX – UI
Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality
Educational Software
Computer-Aided Software Development

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission: February 3rd, 2019
Student papers: February 17th, 2019
Notification: April 7th, 2019
Camera-ready and author registration: May 3rd, 2019

PAPER SUBMISSION

We invite authors to submit high-quality full papers reporting original and novel research results on all above topics. Papers must be written in English, unpublished and not submitted elsewhere. Full papers must be formatted as the standard IEEE double-column conference template and submitted exclusively using the link http://ieee‐colcom.org/authors.html. Maximum 6 pages are allowed for each paper, including all illustrations and references.

Submission link : https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=colcom2019

CALL FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT PAPERS

We encourage the submission of original, unpublished results of undergraduate projects focused on (but not limited to) the topics of the conference, using a short paper format (4 pages maximum). Accepted papers will be presented in Poster format during the Conference and papers will be published in Conference Proceedings but will not go to IEEEXplore. Best papers will be published in a national journal.

Undergraduate papers Timeline

Deadline for paper submission: February 17th, 2019
Acceptance / rejection announcement: April 7th, 2019
Camera Ready and Author registration: May 3rd, 2019

Call for papers: UNSA ISCOMM 2019

UNSA ISCOMM 2019 is the most important event in the field of wireless and wired communications to take place in Arequipa, Peru. It will be hosted by Universidad Nacional San Agustín de Arequipa on March 28–29, 2019. We aim to attract professionals from the academia as well as the industry to share their latest results with the scientific, academic and industrialcommunity in the field of communications technologies. This symposium is organized around the keynote speeches of our award-winning guests. You are eagerly invited to see the details and news at our symposium homepage: https://www.unsaiscomm.org.

Arequipa is called the white city and is well-known for its nice weather all year round, colonial downtown, delicious cuisine and touristic attractions nearby.

Papers in all areas of wired and wireless communications and networks are welcomed. Expected topics include, but they are not limited to:

Physical layer and Communications theory

• AI-based communications systems
• Channel estimation and modeling
• Modulation techniques
• Multi-carrier schemes
• Interference estimation
• Cognitive radio
• Energy efficient PHY
• Physical layer security
• Ultra wideband
• mmWave
• Massive MIMO
• Antenna design and characterization
• Pulseshape design
• 5G PHY
• IoT PHY

Wired and Wireless Networks

• AI-based networks
• Software-defined wired/wireless networks
• Wireless sensor networksOptical networks
• Internet
• Social networks
• QoS and traffic management
• IoT Networks
• Ultra-dense networks
• Multi-RAT networks
• Heterogeneous networks
• Smart cities

Applications

• Visible light communications
• Power line communications
• Satellite communications
• Intelligent transport systems
• Localization and tracking
• M2M communications
• P2P communications

Authors are invited to submit original, 4-6 pages papers written in English and following the IEEE conference format guidelines and the instructions at our webpage. Accepted and presented papers will be published at IEEE Xplore and in the UNSA ISCOMM 2019 Proceedings. Aiming to encourage undergraduate students’ participation, a poster session is also planned. Check our webpage for details. Further information can be obtained mailing to information@unsaiscomm.org

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline: December 18, 2018

Extended Deadline: February 10, 2019

Notification of Acceptance: February 15, 2019

Camera ready submission: February 28, 2019