The IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest 2016 was announced in June 2015. The deadline to submit Student Branches best papers to R8 contest was December 15, 2015. 

Within the SPC 2016 campaign, the following activities were realized, mainly by emails:

• Beginning June 2016 a SPC 2016 email call with essential SPC data and rules was sent to all R8 SB chairs.
• The same email was also sent to all SB counselors.
• Different versions of the SPC calls were sent to SB chairs and counselors three more times.
• All Region 8 IEEE student members got once email with brief information about various Students’ activities, including SPC.
• Section chairs, Section students’ representatives and student activities officers also obtained basic information about SPC, asking them to support and co-organize SPC activities. It was especially emphasized to connect when possible local SPC contests with other IEEE R8 Sections and Chapters activities.

Before the deadline 32 IEEE student papers were submitted. 30 papers were accepted and graded.  .

SPC 2016 contestants were from 19 Sections and 25 different Student Branches/Institutions:

• Universite Catholique de Louvain,  Benelux

*ENSIAS-University Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco

• Univeresity Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

*University of Bologna, Italy

• Univ Maribor, Slovenia

*University of Bahrain

*University of Bucharest, Romania

• University of Nis, Serbia

*Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

• University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

*University of Tehran, Iran

*Sohag University, Egypt

*Eindhoven University of Technology, Benelux (2)

*University of Southampton, UKRI

• Telecom Bretagne, France

*KU Leuven, Benelux (2)

*Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), Lebanon

• Klagenfurt University, Austria;

*Isfahan University of Technology, Iran

*King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (3)

• University of Valencia, Spain

*Ss Cyril and Metodius University, Skopje, Macedonia

*Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

*University of Applied Sciences Bielefel, Germany

*University of Technology and Economics Budapest, Hungary (2)

The first phase of the IEEE Region 8 Student Paper Contest – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished at the beginning of February 2016. During this phase the International Jury:

– Prof. Paul Micallef, Malta – Chair,

• Prof. Samir Shaheen, Egypt,

– Prof. Andrzej Pacut, Poland,

– Prof. Mohamad Awad, Lebanon,

-Prof. Christos Schizas, Cyprus

anonymously graded all papers. The contributions were graded as follows:

– Written paper evaluation:

• 45 points maximum for the technical and engineering content,
• 25 points maximum for the paper content presentation.

Jury selected the following five papers (in alphabetical order of the first author’s first name) for the SPC 2016 Oral Finals:

A.J. Van den Biggelaar (91222905)  “A Fast, Flexible and Accurate Algorithm for Shaping the 3D Radiation Pattern of an  AAS”, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Laszlo Pinter (93247672) “Statistical Analysis of the Electrical Vehicle Chargers’ Impacts on the Low-voltage Distribution System”, University of Technology and Economics Budapest, Hungary

Marko Bizjak (93544587) “The segmentation of a point cloud using locally fitted surfaces”, University of Maribor, Slovenia

Serban Mihalache (92528080), Florin-Silviu Dumitru (93718008)  “Current-Mode Capacitance Multiplier with Reduced Parasitic Elements ”, University of Bucharest, Rumania

Stefan Wunsch (93708480) “Reducing the Processing Loss of Windowed Transforms using Linear Discriminant Analysis ”, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

The first phase of the IEEE R8 SPC – selection of the best five papers for Oral Finals – finished March  2016.

IEEE Region 8 SPC 2016 – II phase

ORAL FINALS, SELECTION OF WINNERS AND WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT

The second phase of the Region 8 SPC 2016 – Oral Finals – was organized in Limassol, Cyprus  April 19, 2016, during the MELECON 2016 IEEE Conference.

The five finalists were examined on the technical presentation, their communication skills and their answers to the questions from the jury members and from the audience present at the presentation. The marks awarded by the jury members, out of a possible 30 marks, were added to the marks obtained in the first stage to obtain the final total.  The jury members had a further discussion on the results and agreed to the following.

The first three prizes awarded, from the IEEE Life Member Fund, were to:

 First Prize:  Certificate and 800 USD (cash award amount):

Stefan Wunsch (93708480) “Reducing the Processing Loss of Windowed Transforms using Linear Discriminant Analysis ”, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Student Branch, from which the First Prize winner of the SPC 2016 came from, will receive the Region 8 “Dick Poortvliet Award”, an amount of USD 250;

Second Prize: Certificate and 500 USD (cash award amount):

A.J. Van den Biggelaar (91222905)  “A Fast, Flexible and Accurate Algorithm for Shaping the 3D Radiation Pattern of an  AAS”, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands

Third Prize: Certificate  and 200 USD (cash award amount):

Serban Mihalache (92528080), Florin-Silviu Dumitru (93718008)  “Current-Mode Capacitance Multiplier with Reduced Parasitic Elements ”, University of Bucharest, Rumania

The official award ceremony of SPC 2016 was organized during the MELECON 2016 Gala Dinner, April 19, 2016. IEEE Region 8 Director Costas Stasopoulos and SPC 2016 Coordinator Paul Micallef introduced all the SPC finalists, and the members of the Jury and announced the three winners. All finalists also obtained certificates that their papers were selected as the five best SPC 2016 papers.

All finalists papers were included in MELECON 2016 Proceedings and in IEEE Explore digital library.

Finalists and jury members