The IEEE UK and Ireland VTS Chapter is holding a Seminars Series at King’s College on 2 July 2018. The first Seminar will be given by Prof. Aylin Yener, from Pennslyvania State University, on the topic of “Foundations of Energy Harvesting and Energy Cooperating Communications”, starting at 11am. The second seminar will be given by Dr. Jonathan Scarlett from the National University of Singapore, on the topic of “Information-Theoretic Limits for Inference, Learning, and Optimization”, starting at noon.
These Seminars will be held in Room (S)1.04, King’s College London, Bush House, 30 Aldwych, London WC2B 4BG.
Note that registration by the end of Friday this week is *required* at the following link.
Further details are as follows:
First seminar:
Title: Foundations of Energy Harvesting and Energy Cooperating Communications
Abstract: Wireless communication networks composed of devices that can harvest energy from nature will lead to the green future of wireless, as energy harvesting offers the possibility of perpetual network operation without adverse effects on the environment. By developing effective and robust communication techniques to be used under energy harvesting conditions, some of the communication devices in a heterogeneous network can even be taken off the grid. Energy harvesting brings new considerations to system level design of wireless communication networks, leading to new insights. These include randomness and intermittency of available energy, as well as additional system issues to be concerned about such as energy storage capacity and processing complexity. Additionally, one can now envision such devices engaging in energy cooperation by powering one another to improve overall network performance. The goal of this talk is to furnish the audience with fundamental design principles of energy harvesting and energy cooperating wireless communication networks which is an emerging research area.
Biography: Aylin Yener is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA, since 2010, where she joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2002. Since 2017, she is a Dean’s Fellow in the College of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. From 2016-2018, she was a Visiting Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. From 2008 to 2009, she was a Visiting Associate Professor with the same department. Her research interests include information theory, communication theory, and network science, with recent emphasis on green communications and information security. She received the NSF CAREER award in 2003, the Best Paper Award in Communication Theory in the IEEE International Conference on Communications in 2010, the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society (PSEAS) Outstanding Research Award in 2010, the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in 2014, the PSEAS Premier Research Award in 2014, and the Leonard A. Doggett Award for Outstanding Writing in Electrical Engineering at Penn State in 2014. She is a distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Communications Society (2018-2020) and the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (2017-2019). She is a fellow of the IEEE.
Dr. Yener is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society (2015-2020), where she was previously the treasurer (2012-2014). She served as the student committee chair for the IEEE Information Theory Society 2007-2011, and was the co-founder of the Annual School of Information Theory in North America co-organizing the school in 2008, 2009, and 2010. She was a technical (co)-chair for various symposia/tracks at the IEEE ICC, PIMRC, VTC, WCNC, and Asilomar (2005-2014). She served as an editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS (2009 – 2012), an editor and an editorial advisory board member for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS (2001-2012), and a guest editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION FORENSICS AND SECURITY (2011) and the IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS IN COMMUNICATIONS (2015). Currently, she serves on the editorial board of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MOBILE COMPUTING and as a senior editor for the IEEE JOURNAL ON SELECTED AREAS ON COMMUNICATIONS.
Second seminar
Title: Information-Theoretic Limits for Inference, Learning, and Optimization
Abstract: The field of information theory was introduced as a means for understanding the fundamental limits of data compression and transmission, and has shaped the design of practical communication systems for decades. In this talk, I will discuss the emerging viewpoint that information theory is not only a theory of communication, but a far-reaching theory of data that is applicable to seemingly unrelated statistical problems such as estimation, prediction, and optimization. This perspective leads to principled approaches for certifying the near-optimality of practical algorithms, as well as understanding where further improvements are possible. I will provide an introduction to some of the main ideas and insights offered by this perspective, and present examples in the problems of group testing, graphical model selection, sparse regression, and black-box function optimization.
Biography: Jonathan Scarlett received the B.Eng.~degree in electrical engineering and the B.Sci. degree in computer science from the University of Melbourne, Australia, both in 2010. From October 2011 to August 2014, he was a Ph.D. student in the Signal Processing and Communications Group at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. From September 2014 to September 2017, he was a post-doctoral researcher with the Laboratory for Information and Inference Systems at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics, National University of Singapore. His research interests are in the areas of information theory, machine learning, signal processing, and high-dimensional statistics.
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