WORKSHOP NEWS
IEEE International Workshop on Complex Systems and Networks in Perth
The International Workshop on Complex Systems and Networks has been held annually since 2004. This year was the third visit to Australia (after Melbourne in 2011 and Canberra in 2008) and the first in Perth. Holding a small and focussed international workshop in what is possibly the most isolated capital city in the world presented some challenges, and so the event was extended by a couple of days to allow visitors from the Northern Hemisphere time to acclimatise. The programme featured 20 speakers from around the world and attracted over 60 attendees.
As in previous years, the programme covered a range of topics in complex systems and complex networks and included speakers from a range of application domains - physics, engineering, mathematics, social networks, granular systems, electronic systems, robotics and guidance systems, and applications to business and innovation. Perth is hub of the Australian resources industry and a particular focus this year was on problems of engineering for remote operations and the ways in which complex systems can contribute to better engineering practise - through reliability engineering, virtual networks and complex engineering systems. The audience was given wide range of problems from compressive sensing to synchronisation and dynamics of complex systems as will as application in the prediction of innovation and business success.
The venue for this years conference was the Old Swan Brewery, a former brewery and now conference centre on the banks of the Swan River. In addition to the technical programme, attendees participated in a river cruise and were able to sample some of the local produce - wine, cheese and beer - of the region. The event made for a lively exchange between world experts in the field and many students in attendance. This was helped, in particular by financial support from the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute which provided both direct sponsorship and travel support for Australian students from elsewhere in the country. The event was co-sponsored by The University of Western Australia’s Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics and The City University of Hong Kong
Michael Small, Workshop Chair
IEEE STAR-CAS 2015: Selected Topics on Advanced Research on Circuits and Systems
In the frame of the IEEE CASS 2015 Outreach program, the University of Pavia, Italy, organized STAR-CAS: two workshops of three days each on advanced integrated analog and mixed-signal systems. Over 80 participants, including university professors, semiconductor industries engineers, and students (master and Ph.D.) from Europe gathered together to discuss the latest progresses and developments in integrated circuits and systems design.
Organized by Edoardo Bonizzoni, Alessandro Cabrini, and Prof. Franco Maloberti, the event has accomplished its objectives of providing the largest possible coverage of design issues, methods, and solutions so as to promote a cross-disciplinary insight for the engineers of the next decade.
The workshop committee had invited a number of leading experts from academia and industry to deliver keynote presentations. In addition to enrich technical knowledge, the instructors and participants had the chance to visit the Volta Museum and the beautiful historical library of the university.
The first workshop took place in the historical Aula Volta (Alessandro Volta, the inventor of the Voltaic pile, held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Pavia for nearly 40 years in the XIX century) of the University of Pavia from June 3rd to June 5th. The lecturers were: G. Ricotti (STMicroelectronics), C. Calligaro (RedCat Devices), A. Fornasari (Texas Instruments), L. Baldi (Micron), Prof. S. Carrara (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), and Prof. C. Dehollain (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne). Topics of their keynote addresses have covered the notions of smart power technologies, design of integrated circuits for space applications, dynamic compensation of offset in amplifiers, non-volatile memory technologies, telemetry of metabolism, and remotely powered sensor networks and RFIDs.
The second workshop took place in the historical Aula Foscolo (Ugo Foscolo, an Italian writer and poet of the XIX century, has been professor at the University of Pavia) of the University of Pavia from September 28th to September 30th. The invited lecturers were: G. Chiaretti, A. Fincato, E. Temporiti (STMicroeletronics), Prof. Y. Leblebici (Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne), Prof. F. Svelto (University of Pavia), Prof. F. Maloberti (University of Pavia), Prof. A. Rodriguez-Vazquez (University of Seville), Prof. J.M. de la Rosa (University of Seville), R. Bez and G. de Amicis (LFoundry). Their talk gave an overview on silicon photonics technology, design strategies for modular 3D-multiprocessor systems, design of circuits for frequency synthesizers, power efficient SAR converters, architectures and circuits for neuronal recording interfaces, fundamentals and applications of sigma-delta converters, CMOS image sensor development.
Prof. F. Maloberti lecturing in Aula Foscolo during the second STAR-CAS workshop.
The historical library of the University of Pavia
Edoardo Bonizzoni, University of Pavia (Email: edoardo.bonizzoni@unipv.it)
