ISWC07 - IEEE International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems

SPONSORED BY ERCIM

In 2007, ISWCS became an IEEE-sponsored conference. Specifically, ISWCS'07 was sponsored by the IEEE and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. In addition, it was technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society and the Nordic Radio Association. ISWCS'07 also received strong institutional support from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Agder, and the Simula Research Laboratory. Besides, the conference received sponsorships from the City of Trondheim, the Research Council of Norway, Telenor Research and Innovation, The MathWorks and ERCIM.

The technical program of ISWCS'07 was very strong, which, in addition to paper sessions, included keynote speeches, panel discussion and tutorials. There were four keynote speeches given by internationally recognized experts from both academia and industry. Professor David Gesbert (Eurecom Institute) gave a talk on adaptation, coordination and distributed resource allocation in wireless networks. Dr. Hans Martin Ritt (The MathWorks) presented his view on the role of new development technologies in developing complex wireless systems. Professor Andreas F. Molisch (Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs and Lund University) highlighted how the MIMO antenna and channel properties impact wireless systems. Professor Mario Gerla (UCLA) talked about vehicle to vehicle communications and networking.

One panel discussion was organised. The panel members were Richard Savage (Qualcomm Europe), Stein Hansen (Telenor), Boon Sain Yeo (SensiMesh), Ralf Müller (NTNU) , Jarle Boe (Texas Instrument), and Victor Bahl (Microsoft Research). There were lively discussions during the panel session, and the panel provided a good forum for both the panelists and the audiences to debate the future of wireless communications.

Six tutorials were provided on 16th October 2007. These tutorials were carefully chosen from the proposals received by the conference. Topics of them covered a wide range of active areas in wireless communications, networking and systems. They included "Multipath Characterization of Antennas and Mobile Terminals for Diversity and MIMO Systems" by Per-Simon Kildal and Jan Carlsson (Chalmers University of Technology), "Ultra-Wideband Technology and its Standardization for Wireless Personal Area Networks" by Huan-Bang Li (NICT), "From Cognitive Radios to Cognitive Wireless Networks" by Petri Mahonen and Marina Petrova (RWTH Achen University), "Multiuser Communications" by Ralf Muller (NTNU), "Introduction to ITS Communication Solutions" by Runnar Søråsen and Per Jarle Furnes (Q-free), and "RFID Systems" by Boon Sain Yeo (SensiMesh). The conference gave each registered participant free access to one tutorial. All six tutorials were well attended.

The conference received 369 submissions and about 2/3 of the submissions were full papers. This figure exceeded the number of submissions to previous ISWCS conferences and showed that ISWCS was on the right path to greater recognition and international popularity. The review process involved all members of the Technical Program Committee and many other reviewers, all were recognized experts in their respective fields. It was taken care that the topic of each submitted paper fell within the reviewers' area of expertise. The review process was in accordance with standard single blind peer-reviewing practices, i.e., the reviewers know who the authors of the manuscript are, but the authors do not have access to the information of who the reviewers are. For most papers, at least 3 independent reviews were received. In some very few cases, we were satisfied with 2 reviews provided the two reviews were consistent in their conclusions. The result of the review process was that 170 papers were accepted for presentation at the conference and inclusion in the conference proceedings, among which 107 were oral presentation papers and 63 papers were poster presentations.

The conference received more than 210 registrations, and approximately, 180 people attended the conference each day. A Conference Dinner was arranged. About 120 people registered and attended the Dinner where the best student paper awards were given. ISWCS'07 awarded two Best Student Papers. They were chosen by a committee consisting of the General Chair, TPC Chair, Publication Chair and Speaker Chair. The decision was made based on the paper's originality, depth, and potential impact as well as the author's presentation at the conference.

I thank all people who have contributed to and made the conference a great success in Trondheim. Particularly, I am grateful to the conference organising committee, technical programme committee, reviewers, authors, presenters, sponsors, and the technical societies. My special thanks go to the students of NTNU and University of Agder for their great effort with the on-site arrangement.

ISWCS'08 will be held from 21-24 October 2008 in
Reykjavik, Iceland. I wish them all the best for another successful conference.

Link:
http://www.iswcs.org/iswcs2007/

Please contact:
Yuming Jiang, ISWCS General Chair
NTNU, Norway
E-mail: ymjiangieee.org