THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS, INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION ENGINEERS
電子情報通信学会

2020 年 6 月 1 日発行

VOL.44 NO.2
June. 2020

[Contents]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

IEICE Communications Society GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No.2
Contents○ From President
Greetings from the New President ................................................................................................................................ 2
Nobuyoshi Kikuma○ From CS Fellows
Transmission System Design for 40G Link System through Global Collaboration .....................................................3
Akira Hirano
My Research Experience on Switching Power Supply Control for Electronics, Information and Communications
System .......................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Fujio Kurokawa○ Technology Reports
Application of AI to Network Operation .................................................................................................................... 11
Ryoichi Kawahara, Keishiro Watanabe, Shigeaki Harada, Takehiro Kawata○ IEICE-CS Activities Now
2019 IEICE Fellow Conferred on 9 IEICE-CS Members ........................................................................................... 19
Nazuki Honda
Annual Report of Technical Committee on Information Networks (IN) .................................................................... 20
Seiichiro Mochida, Shingo Kashima, Shuntaro Kashihara, Hiroyasu Obata
Report on the Sixth ENRI International Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2019) .....................................................22
Yutaka Fukuda
Annual Report of Technical Committee on Information and Communication Management (ICM) ..........................24
Saburo Seto, Haruo Oishi, Hiroki Nakayama
Report on NS English Session at 2020 IEICE General Conference ‒BS-1 In-Network Intelligence for Design,Management, and Control of Future Networks and Services‒ ................................................................................... 25
Tatsuaki Kimura, Yosuke Tanigawa, Shinya Kawano, Shiro Mizuno, Akihiro Nakao, Yoshikatsu Okazaki
Report on the 1st Philippines-Japan Workshop on Wireless, Radio and Antenna Technologies .................................26
Paul Jason Coⓒ 2020,IEICE

[Contents]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2○ IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports
Report on the 7th International Conference on Smart Grid (icSmartGrid2019) .......................................................... 29
Nobumasa Matsui, Fujio Kurokawa
Report on Japan–Africa Conference on Electronics, Communications, and Computations 2019
(JAC-ECC2019) ......................................................................................................................................................... 31
Osamu Muta
Report on the 34th International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN) 2020 ..........................................33
Kihyung Kim, Sangheon Pack
Report on the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Information and Communication(ICAIIC) 2020 ............................................................................................................................................................ 34
Yeong Min Jang, Takeo Fujii, Dong Seog Han, Seokjoo Shin

○ IEICE-CS Information
IEICE-CS Related Conferences Calendar .................................................................................................................. 36
CFPs for IEICE-CS Related Conferences ................................................................................................................... 38
Special Section Calendar of IEICE Transactions on Communications ...................................................................... 40
CFPs for Special Sections on IEICE Transactions on Communications .................................................................... 41
CFPs for Special Cluster on IEICE Commmunications Express (ComEX)............................................................. 44

From Editor’s Desk ..................................................................................................................................................... 45○ Photogravure
IEICE Society Conference 2020 ...................................................................................................................Back cover＊Color Version Available!

The PDF (color version) of this issue can be downloaded from IEICE-CS
Web site below:
https://www.ieice.org/cs/pub/global_news.html

[From President]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Greetings from the New President
Nobuyoshi Kikuma
President, IEICE Communications Society
Professor, Nagoya Institute of Technology
It is my great honor to serve as the President of the
IEICE Communications Society (IEICE-CS), which
has continuously fostered and innovated newcommunication technologies for the future advanced
society. Notably, 2020 is a memorial year when theservice of 5th generation mobile communication (5G)
started in Japan. I expect that many researchers andengineers from academia and industry join the IEICECS
activities
towards
thenext-generation
communication systems. I will do my best to improve
the activities further and to increase their significancefor IEICE-CS members.
I would like to look back on the last year 2019 firstof all. We had two big events of cross-field national
technical meetings: MIKA2019 (Multiple Innovative
Kenkyu-kai Association for wireless communications)and RISING2019 (Cross-Field Research Association ofSuper-Intelligent Networking). They were supported bymany technical committees of not only the IEICE-CS
but also other IEICE Societies. In particular,
RISING2019 held a topical session collaborating with
the Japan Society of Machine Engineers. As a result,both meetings had 200 to 300 participants, respectively,
and concluded quite successfully. As the next step, theIEICE-CS is planning the cross-field international
conference that is the flagship of the IEICE-CS. I hopethat the flagship international conference will makethree massive pillars with MIKA and RISING in the
IEICE-CS. This structure will get the IEICE-CS to be
more exciting and enjoyable.
In MIKA2019, I provided a keynote address that wasentitled “Optimization of Multi-Antenna Systems
Bound with Rayleigh Quotient - Longitudinal Study
towards Cross-Field Transverse Development.” What I
wanted to say in the talk is that a reasonable and logicalpolicy is necessary to develop things transversally over
the walls between multiple technical fields. Just likethe warp and weft of fabrics, the MIKA and RISING oftransverse wefts are passed over and under thetechnical committees and IEICE societies of thelongitudinal warps. For the artistic weaving, the IEICECS has to have a consistent policy and flexible sense
for all activities. Then, MIKA and RISING can be infull bloom as if the wefts make up beautiful arts
together with the tight warps. In this way, IEICE-CS
will expand furthermore in all directions with thesupport of the cross-field activities. I understand that it
is my role as the President of the IEICE-CS to weave
with the right balance between warps and wefts in the
IEICE-CS.
2

By the way, I had a chance to know SDGs [1] lastyear. SDGs stands for “Sustainable Development
Goals.” Recently, I always put an SDGs badge on myjacket for self-enlightenment as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 SDGs badge.
As you know, SDGs are a collection of 17 global
goals designed to be a “blueprint for achieving a betterand more sustainable future for all.” So, I made my
SDGs. One of my SDGs is “Continuous humanresource development to make a sustainable society.”
Society cannot exist without the persons, and I would
say that continuously bringing up young people whobear the next generation is the key to forming
sustainable communities. I believe that person-making
must be an essential infrastructure-making of society.
Unfortunately, because of new coronavirus, ouractivities are severely limited, and so the IEICE is instate of being unable to hold large-scale events. For
example, the general conference of IEICE was held
only online in March 2020. Many technical meetings
have been canceled. I feel lonely since I cannot see the
IEICE friends. On the other hand, there are manythings we learned in such a situation. Realizing theonline meetings and online conferences is one of thecritical and urgent issues. On this occasion, we must
construct and expand those online systems, including
not only online discussions but also online parties,
based on the 5G communication systems. It is time topush forward and practice things that we have hesitatedto do or put off until now. When coronavirus isconquered and the current restrictions to us are
removed, let us make the social distance quite small
and join the IEICE-CS activities with enthusiastic
hearts having younger people on in our communities.
I would like to conclude this greeting message byasking all of you for your kind support andcontributions to IEICE-CS activities.
Reference[1] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustai
nable-development-goals/

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Transmission System Design for 40G Link Systemthrough Global Collaboration
Akira Hirano
Tokyo Denki University
1. Introduction
Optical transmission systems have achieved large
capacity of up to seven orders of magnitude throughresearch and development of various breakthroughtechnologies such as optical amplifiers [1]. At the sametime as the increase in capacity, the overwhelming
reduction in communication costs has created an
economical global network, making it possible to use
various services anywhere in the world. In the researchand development of these optical transmission systems,
I realized for the first time a 40 Gbit system using thephase of light, from a 10 Gbit / second system that used
IM-DD (Intensity Modulation-Direct Detection). Basedon these researches and developments, the chromatic
dispersion and polarization mode dispersion were
mitigated. In this letter, a system design techniqueconsidering these kinds of impairments which wasrealized through global cooperation is described.
2. Chromatic Dispersion and Polarization Mode
Dispersion
The chromatic dispersion and the polarization mode
dispersion of an optical fiber are main factors thatcause transmission deterioration of an opticaltransmission signal via ISI (Inter Symbol Interference).
Figure 1 schematically shows ISI resulted fromchromatic dispersion.

it is necessary to accurately estimate the amount ofchromatic dispersion.
As shown in Fig. 2, the polarization mode dispersion
also causes deterioration in the quality of the opticalsignal through ISI, because the propagation speed
varies depending on the polarization component of the
optical signal due to the birefringence characteristic of
the optical fiber.

Fig. 2 ISI by polarization mode dispersion.
3. Optical Phase Control and Chromatic Dispersion
Estimation
3.1 Evaluation of the Effect of Optical Phase
As one of the approaches beyond the limit of IM-DD,
the possibility of improving the chromatic dispersion
tolerance by actively controlling the optical phase was
examined. Using the model shown in Fig. 3, simulation
was used to evaluate how mutual phase states between
adjacent symbols of an optical signal affect against
chromatic dispersion.

Fig. 1 ISI by chromatic dispersion.
An optical signal pulse has a certain bandwidth
depending on its waveform and baud rate. In thechromatic dispersion, the signal component in the band
advances at a different group velocity according to theoptical frequency, and thus the waveform spreads asshown in the lower part of the figure. To compensate
for such deterioration, whether optically or electrically,

Fig. 3 Evaluation model.
As a result of the evaluation, a remarkable difference
was observed in the waveform depending on therelative phase as shown in Fig. 4, and it was confirmed
3

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2that the ISI was suppressed between adjacent symbols
when the relative phase was π. Therefore, to prove this,the device shown in Fig. 5 was developed andexperimentally verified [2].

Fig. 7 Experimental results of dispersion tolerance.

Fig. 4 Results of numerical simulations.

3.2 Use of Spectral Structure of Optical Signal
A close look at the optical spectrum on the right sideof Fig. 6 shows that the combinations of the carriercomponents are different from each other. When the
optical phase difference is 0, the optical pulse is mainly
generated by three carrier components, but as shown in
the lowermost diagram of the optical phase difference π,
the optical pulse is formed by two carrier components
having almost the same intensity. Focusing on thisstructure, we confirmed that these two components canbe separated during reception [3-5]. Figure 8 shows
this state.

Fig. 5 Transmitter with optical phase control.
The results of experiments using this device areshown in Fig. 6. The waveforms and spectra were ingood agreement with the simulation, and good results
were obtained with respect to the chromatic dispersion
tolerance when the phase difference was π as expected.

Fig. 6 Experimental results.

4Fig. 8 Spectrum structure of phase difference π.
When these two carrier components propagate
through the optical fiber, they should receive different
chromatic dispersions by an amount corresponding to
the difference between the two frequency components.
That is, if the deviation is measured, it is expected thatthe amount of chromatic dispersion can be estimated asshown in Fig. 9 and Equation 1 [6, 7].

Fig. 9 Dispersion estimation by dual carriercomparison.

[From CS Fellows]

D=−

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 22
Td Fcarrier
cFseparation

Eq. 1

D, Td, Fcarrier, Fseparation, and c are the amount ofchromatic dispersion, the delay difference between two
carrier components, the carrier frequency, the carrier
frequency difference, and the speed of light,
respectively. As described above, by measuring thedelay difference between different frequency
components inside the optical signal, it is possible toestimate the amount of chromatic dispersion including
its sign. If this method is used, compensation can be
performed in-line and in real time without using ameasuring instrument or the like. Figure 10 shows theexperimental demonstration of this idea.

Fig. 11 Field experiment configuration in Berlin.

Fig. 10 In-line and real-time compensation method.
Although an optical compensator is used in thisexperiment, the same configuration can be applied toelectrical signal processing. Even in current digital
coherent systems, the amount of chromatic dispersion
is estimated by a method equivalent to this, and the value
is used to compensate by digital signal processing.
4. Polarization Mode Dispersion Evaluation by
Global Cooperation
4.1 Status of Installed Fibers
In order to quantitatively evaluate the polarization
mode dispersion and to evaluate the effect on thetransmission characteristics, it is necessary to use
installed fibers having a certain amount of polarization
mode dispersion. At that time, the fiber installed inJapan had a relatively small amount of polarization
mode dispersion, making it difficult to accurately
quantify the effects of polarization mode dispersion
having statistical properties. However, in the case of
Deutsche Telekom's installed fiber, more than 35% of
the fibers in the backbone segment had a value of 5 ps
or more, which was optimal for such evaluation. For
this reason, the 40G prototype system developed by
NTT was brought to Deutsche Telekom's office andcoordinated for experiments to evaluate. Finally, theconfiguration shown in Fig. 11 was implemented in
Berlin in the summer of 2003.

Fig. 12 Results of field experiments (γ =0.5).

Fig. 13 Results of field experiments (γ =0).
4.2 Field Evaluation Experiment
Figure 12, 13 shows the results of the evaluation
experiment. The superiority of RZ over NRZ and theeffectiveness of Reed-Solomon FEC were confirmed[8-10]. Through this evaluation experiment, the world's
first effective tolerance of a 40G high-speed opticalsignal in an installed fiber was evaluated. Based onthese results, a margin design was performed, and the
40G-WDM system using the RZ-DQPSK method,which can achieve the required proof stress, was put topractical use.
Based on these results, a proposal for standardization
contribution was made to ITU-T under the joint nameof Deutsche Telekom, and the recommended duty ratio
of RZ for polarization mode dispersion was agreed [11].
5[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

5. Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the NTT
Transmission Systems Laboratories (now NTT
Network Innovations Laboratories, NTT Network
Systems Laboratories), affiliates, and university
professors. I am deeply grateful to all of the above.
6. References[1] K. Hagimoto, “Optical transmission systems
toward longer reach and larger capacity,” IEICE
Transactions on Communications Vol. E100-B
No.9, pp.1696-1706, September 2017.
[2] A. Hirano, M. Asobe, K. Sato, Y. Miyamoto, K.
Yonenaga, H. Miyazawa, M. Abe, H. Takara, and I.
Shake, “Dispersion tolerant 80-Gbit/s carriersuppressed return-to-zero (CS-RZ) format
generated by using phase- and duty-controlled
optical time division multiplexing (OTDM)
technique,”
IEICE
Transactionson
Communications, vol. E85B(2), pp. 431-437,(2002).
[3] A. Hirano, Y. Miyamoto, S. Kuwahara, M.
Tomizawa, and K. Murata, “A novel modesplitting detection scheme in 43-Gb/s CS- and
DCS-RZ signal transmission,” IEEE/OSA J.
Lightwave Technol., vol. 20, pp. 2029-2034,
December 2002.
[4] A. Hirano, and Y. Miyamoto, “Novel modulation
formats in ultra-high-speed transmission systems,
and
their
applications,”
OpticalFiber
Communication Conference, Los Angeles, Invited
Paper ThM1, California, United States, February
22, 2004.
[5] A. Hirano, “Spectral mode splitting: concepts andapplications,”
IEEE/LEOS
Workshopon
Advanced Modulation Formats, San Francisco,
Invited Paper, USA 2004.
[6] A. Hirano, S. Kuwahara, Y. Miyamoto, and K.
Murata, “A Novel dispersion compensation
scheme based on phase comparison between two
SSB signals generated from a spectrally filtered
CS-RZ signal,” Optical Fiber Communication
Conference 2002, Anaheim, California, UnitedStates, 17 March, 2002.
[7] A. Hirano, Y. Miyamoto, and M. Tomizawa,“Impact of modulation formats on 40-Gbit/s/ch
WDM networks,” Proc. SPIE 4872, Optical
Transmission Systems and Equipment for WDM
Networking, July 2002.
[8] A. Hirano, S. Kuwahara, M. Yoneyama, Y. Kisaka,
M. Tomizawa, Y. Miyamoto, W. Weiershausen, R.
Leppla, O. Leminger, F. Rumpf, R. Herber, A.
Mattheus, and A. Gladisch, “PMD-limited
transmission with CS-RZ and NRZ in joint fieldtrial: 43-Gbit/s NTT's transport system in DT's
installed fiber environment,” Paper WH5, Global
Developments in Optical Networking (WH)session in (OFC) Optical Fiber Communication
Conference, Los Angeles, California, UnitedStates, February 22, 2004.
[9] A. Hirano, S. Kuwahara, M. Yoneyama, Y. Kisaka,
M. Tomizawa, Y. Miyamoto, W. Weiershausen, R.
Leppla, O. Leminger, F. Rumpf, R. Herber, A.
Mattheus, and A. Gladisch, “Field trial of 43
Gbit/s CS-RZ OTN system in PMD-limited
transmission links,” Electronics Letters, Volume
40, Issue 15, pp. 957-958, 22 July, 2004.
[10] W. Weiershausen, R. Leppla, O. Leminger, F.
6

Rumpf, R. Herber, A. Mattheus, A. Gladisch, A.
Hirano, Y. Kisaka, Y. Miyamoto, S. Kuwahara, M.
Yoneyama, and M. Tomizawa, “PMD outage
measurements in a joint field trial of a 43-Gbit/s
NTT WDM transmission system within DT’s
installed fiber environment,” Paper WP3, Network
Design and Evaluation (WP) session in (OFC)
Optical Fiber Communication Conference, Los
Angeles, California, United States, February 22,
2004.
[11] A. Mattheus, and A. Hirano, “Duty cycle of 40G
RZ signal transmission in conjunction with 2ndorder PMD effects,” ITU-T SG15 WP4contribution, COM15, D882, Geneva, 2003.

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

My Research Experience on Switching Power
Supply Control for Electronics, Information andCommunications System
Fujio Kurokawa
Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science
1. Introduction
It is a great honor for me to have been awarded the
IEICE Fellow for my contribution to research anddevelopment on Switching Power Supply Control for
Electronics, Information and Communications System. I
express my deepest thanks for many colleagues of myresearch field. I think I have contributed with mycolleagues to develop not only the analog control
techniques but also digital control techniques for theswitching power supply in the information andcommunications System [1, 2]. These results applied todevelop the control method of PWM, resonant and softswitching dc-dc converters for switching power supply
in electronics, information and communications systems.
Moreover, I think these excellent fruits produced great
advantages to research and invent a new digital control
method for switching power supply.
2. Outline of My WorkIn the development of the digital control techniques, I
designed and developed the parallel processing digital
control circuit already in 1989. Although the switchingfrequency of the digitally controlled dc-dc buckconverter was 20 kHz, it was useful that I made clear up
the design criterion of digital control circuit parameters
first. Therefore, it is revealed that my outstanding
realized digital control circuit technique blazed a trail inthe digital power field. The power supplies are usuallycontrolled by analog ICs because the controllability of
the analog ICs is satisfactory, and the cost of the digital
ICs is higher than that of analog ones. Recently, thepower supply system requires the high-performance
characteristics, the high reliability, and the small size. In
this case, it has been recognized that the digital control
techniques are useful for these switching power supplies.
However, it was well known that the digitally controlled
dc-dc converter is not operated in the high frequency
switching band. To solve this problem, I designed anddeveloped a new high-speed 1 MHz digital control
circuit for dc-dc converter in 2004 [3]. My results in [3]provided a strong impact for engineers in the world.
Further, I considered the design criterion andpublished the simple design procedure for digital controlof dc-dc converter. These results were presented bymany invited papers in the international conferences andjournals. They were also applied to develop a unique
digital control method of many power supply systems.
From 2009, since the Japanese government evaluates myresearch, my digital control techniques were chosen forhigher voltage direct-current (HVDC) power-feeding
supply system in data center buildings as one of main
subject of New Energy and Industrial Technology
Development Organization (NEDO) “Green IT Project.”In this big national project, new technologies areinvented to decrease the power consumption of 30% in
the data center and the router, respectively, in Japan [4,5]. Figure 1 shows the next generation module type data
center, where my new technology is implemented.
The most popular digital control method is a digital
PID feedback control. In a conventional PID control, its
gain parameters are optimally determined to control the
dynamic input–output conditions. Due to the fixed
control parameters, it has difficulties under unexpectedconditions. The digital filter method, which is also
widely used as a digital control, has the same problem.
To address such a problem, the function is needed tochange control parameters or add additional control term
adaptively. In this study, I adopt a neural network (NN)to realize such an adaptive control [6-11]. The mostsignificant point of my approach compared to previous
works is that the NN is adopted in the combination withthe conventional PID control. In the presented method,
the NN control modifies the reference or bias value inthe conventional PID control to improve the transient
response of the output voltage.
To modify the reference, the NN is repeatedly trained
to precisely predict the output voltage using former
predicted data. After the training, the reference in the
PID control is modified by the predictor. Therefore, theFig. 1 Next generation module type data center.

7

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Digital Control
Circuit𝜏𝜏2,1(NR +NeoDif )Ei

L

Buck Type
DC-DC Converter
D

R

eo

C

𝜏𝜏2,3
𝜏𝜏1,3

𝜏𝜏1,1

Load Step𝜏𝜏2,2 𝜏𝜏1,2

𝑇𝑇2,2

eo

(a) Digitally controlled buck dc-dc converter.

Pre-Amplifier Circuit
A-D Converter

N eo
Neural Network
Predictor

Modified P-I-D
Controller

NeoEstN Ton
Counter

CLK

Drive
Circuit(b) Control diagram.
Fig. 2 Digitally controlled dc-dc converter
and its control diagram.
NN control improves the transient response of output
voltage in the transient state [10]. The conventional PID
works to keep the regulation characteristics in the steadystate.
The digitally controlled buck converter is shown in Fig.
2(a). Symbols in Fig. 2(a) represent circuit parameters as
follows. 𝐸𝐸𝑖𝑖 is an input voltage. 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 is an output voltage. R
is a load resistance. L is a reactor. D is a diode. C is an
output smoothing capacitor. In the digital control circuit
shown in Fig. 2(a), 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 is detected as a feedback. As
shown in Fig. 2(b), the digital controller consists of theconventional PID controller and the NN controller. It isnoted that the suffix n denotes the n-th period of theswitching period 𝑇𝑇𝑆𝑆 . In the digital controller, 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 is sent
to the A-D converter through the pre-amplifier circuit,and it is converted into its digital value 𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛 , which issent to both the PID controller and the NN controller.
Figure 3 shows the time duration and start-end timingof NN control term for suppression of k-th over orundershoot in the case of 𝑘𝑘 = 1,2,3 to explain the effectfor repetitive training. The time duration after the firstand second training are shown. 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 (𝑘𝑘 = 1, 2, 3) are thetime duration of the NN control term before the timing
control is adopted, which are determined from obtained

8

𝑇𝑇2,3

𝑇𝑇2,1 𝑇𝑇1 ,1eo

𝑇𝑇1 ,2; PID Control; PID + NN Control (after first training ); PID + NN Control (after second training )𝑇𝑇1 ,3t (s)Fig. 3 Time deration and start-end timing of
NN control term.
data in look-up tables (LUTs) preliminarily. The index j
represents the j-th training of the NN (LUT). It is
explained that 𝑇𝑇1,𝑘𝑘 in the first LUT (first NN) are notsuitable when the second neural network (j = 2) is
adopted. Therefore, it is needed to control the time
duration of the NN control term. Fig. 3 also shows theeffective time duration 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 which represents suitableones after the timing control is adopted. During 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 foreach over or undershoot in Fig. 3, the NN control term
is performed.
As mentioned before, the reference in the PID control
term is modified by the NN control. The NN adopted
here is the standard three-layered feed forward NN andtrained with the standard back propagation algorithm.
Figure 4 shows the training procedure and adaptation of
NN control in this study. In the training process of the
NN controller, firstly, the NN is trained to predict 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛from its former three data 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−3 , 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−2 , 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−1 when
only the conventional PID control is adopted. It is notedthat whole 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 data in the transient state are used in thistraining process. The predicted values are stacked into
the memory as the first LUT. Secondly, the reference in
the PID control is modified with the first LUT. Using the
PID control and the first NN control (first LUT)
simultaneously, the on-time duration 𝑁𝑁𝑇𝑇𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 ,𝑛𝑛 iscalculated by (1).
NTon,n =NB − KP �Neo ,n−1 − �NR +NeoDif,n ��−KI ∑�Neo,n−1 − �NR +NeoDif,n ��−KD �Neo,n−1 − Neo ,n−2 �(1)

𝑁𝑁𝐵𝐵 is the bias term. 𝐾𝐾𝑃𝑃 , 𝐾𝐾𝐼𝐼 and 𝐾𝐾𝐷𝐷 are the proportional,
integral and differential coefficients of the PID control,
respectively. 𝑁𝑁𝑅𝑅 is the original constant reference in the
PID control. Compared to the conventional PID control,
the reference in the PID control terms are modified using
𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷,𝑛𝑛 which is represented as (2).
(1)

Neo Dif,n =NR − Neo Est,n(2)(1)
𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸,𝑛𝑛 is the predicted value of 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛 with the first LUT.
The NN control term is performed from the time when
the step change in the load occurs. It is effective forcompensation of subsequent outputs to suppress the firstfew under and overshoots.

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

training
data acquisition for training

𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−3

𝑒𝑒�
𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛

𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−2𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛−1

j-th look-up tablej−1→ j∑Look-Up Tables
𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,1, ⋯ 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘

derived from Eq. (3)Digital Control
𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜

Duration time: 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,1, ⋯ 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘

PWM

Buck Converter

Fig. 4 Training procedure and adaptation of neural network control.
5.4

Overshoot: 2.4%

eo (V)

5.2

±1%

5.0
4.8

Undershoot: 3.2%

4.6
4.4

tst: 3.8ms

0

4.0

8.0
t (ms)

12.0(a) Conventional PID control: KP = 4, KI =0.015, and KD = 4.
5.4

Overshoot: 0.8%

eo (V)

5.2

±1%

5.0
4.8

Undershoot: 2.0%

4.6
4.4

tst: 0.4ms

0

4.0

8.0
t (ms)

12.0(b) Proposed method after third training of NN: KP , KI ,and KD are same with conventional PID control.
Fig. 5 Transient response of 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 in experiment.
The simple criterion is suggested to obtain suitable 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 .
The suitable 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 are calculated from 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 = 𝛼𝛼𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 ,where 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 is the duration time obtained from LUTs and
𝛼𝛼𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 is the ratio of time durations. Each 𝛼𝛼𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 is simply set
to the same value; 𝛼𝛼𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 = 0.75. That is, 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 = 0.75 ×
𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 for each j and k. This criterion makes us easy todesign the NN duration time. We also add one morecriterion which limits the length of duration time to be
too short. When 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 becomes too short, the effect of the
NN control term is decreased too much, and it does notwork well in the control process. Therefore, the criterion
is needed to ensure the effect of the NN control andrealized by limiting the change of duration timedepending on its length. This criterion is represented as(3), which is combined with the first criterion describedabove:
𝛼𝛼𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 �𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 > 𝑇𝑇𝐻𝐻 �𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 = �(𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒𝑒)
𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘(3)

where 𝑇𝑇𝐻𝐻 is the common threshold value to limit thechange of the time duration. From (3), the length of 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘
for each LUT is determined.
The training steps of the NN described above
repeatedly proceeds using former predicted data (LUTs)
until the enough suppression of 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 in transient state is
obtained. When the new LUTs are obtained and added
for each training step, 𝑇𝑇𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 and 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 , the duration time forthe j-th training step, is also obtained. The values of
LUTs are summed up and adopted to modify thereference in the PID control terms in (1). Therefore,
𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷,𝑛𝑛 in (1) is replaced by (4) after j-th training.
𝑗𝑗

(𝑖𝑖)

𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷𝐷,𝑛𝑛 = ∑𝑖𝑖=1 �𝑁𝑁𝑅𝑅 − 𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸,𝑛𝑛 �

(𝑖𝑖)

(4)

𝑁𝑁𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸,𝑛𝑛 is the predicted value of 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜,𝑛𝑛 with the i-th LUT.
For all LUTs, the suitable time duration 𝜏𝜏𝑗𝑗,𝑘𝑘 is also
determined from (3). It is noted that the training of the
NN proceeds repeatedly three times (j = 3) in this study.
As shown in Fig. 5, the experimental results show thatthe proposed method can improve the overshoot and theconvergence time 𝑡𝑡𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠 of 𝑒𝑒𝑜𝑜 simultaneously effectively
and provide stable transient response compared to theconventional ones. The over and undershoots aresuppressed to be about 1/3 and 2/3 of the conventional
PID control, respectively. 𝑡𝑡𝑠𝑠𝑠𝑠 also becomes about 1/9.

3. Future WorkThe reduction of CO2 is a hot topic to protect theenvironment of the earth in nowadays. The renewableenergy has been shown to be an effective means of
reducing CO2 and electricity consumption during thepeak hour. Also, it can be implemented as the non9

[From CS Fellows]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

interruptible power source in the times of disasters. To
this end, it is widely implemented in the fields ofinformation communication, transportation, publicwelfare, etc.
Nowadays, the energy flow in the power supply
system becomes complex due to the implementation ofrenewable energy sources. In order to control the energy
flow with the high-performance, the artificial
intelligence (AI) technologies are expected to be
implemented to control the complex power conversion
system in the future [12]. The AI technologies are
expected to improve the energy management
performance of the individual control power supply
system [13, 14]. For example, in the renewable energy
system, various energy sources with different
characteristics input uncertainly power to the power line
through the power supplies. In the individual control
power supply systems, since the power converter units
take no communication with each other, the optimal
operation points for each unit should be predicted toregulate the balance of the shared power for power
supplies. In this case, the AI technologies can beconsidered as the most effective way to predict the
optimal operation points. The high-speed processing isrequired for the AI technologies to predict the optimal
operation point in real-time because the power supplies
are operated under the high switching frequency. Thus,
it is difficult to implement AI technologies to the highswitching frequency power supply units directly by thepresent technology level. Currently, I am trying to use
simple AI model control approaches instead of standard
AI technologies as the predictive control method forpredicting the optimal operation points to realize
maximum performance of power supplies. I hope tocontinue my contribution for switching power supply
control for future electronics, information andcommunications systems with not only senior but also
young researchers. Also, I expect many researchers will
win the IEICE CS Fellows.
4. References[1] F. Kurokawa and H. Matsuo, “A new multiple-output
hybrid power supply,” IEEE Trans. on PowerElectronics, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 412-419, Oct. 1988.
[2] H. Matsuo, F. Kurokawa and K. Higashi, “Dynamic
characteristics of the digitally controlled dc-dc
converter,” IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics, vol. 4,
no. 4, pp. 419-426, Oct. 1989.
[3] F. Kurokawa, M. Sasaki, S. Hiura and H. Matsuo, “1MHz high-speed digitally controlled dc-dc converter[Invited Paper],” IEICE Trans. on Communications,vol. E87-B, no. 12, pp. 3437-3442, Dec. 2004.
[4] F. Kurokawa, K. Kajiwara, Y. Shibata, Y. Yamabe, T.
Tanaka and K. Hirose, “A new digital peak current
mode dc-dc converter using FPGA delay circuit andsimple A-D converter,” in Proc. IEEE Energy

10

Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), 4
pages, Sep. 2012.
[5] F. Kurokawa, K. Murata, K. Hamawaki, R. Yoshida,
Y. Shibata, H.Maruta, T. Tanaka and K. Hirose, “A
new quick response digital control switching power
supply unit for HVDC system,” in Proc. IEEE
International
Telecommunications
EnergyConference (INTELEC), 4 pages, Sep. / Oct. 2012.
[6] F. Kurokawa, H. Maruta, T. Mizoguchi, A. Nakamuraand H. Osuga, “A new digital control dc-dc converterwith multi-layer neural network predictor,” in Proc.
IEEE International Conference on Machine Learning
and Applications (ICMLA), pp. 638-643, Nov. 2009.
[7] F. Kurokawa, H. Maruta, K. Ueno, T. Mizoguchi, A.
Nakamura and H. Osuga, “A new digital control dcdc converter with neural network predictor,” in Proc.
IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition(ECCE), pp. 522-526, Sep. 2010.
[8] F. Kurokawa, K. Ueno, H. Maruta and H. Osuga, “A
new control method for dc-dc converter by neuralnetwork predictor with repetitive training,” in Proc.
International Conference on Machine Learning andApplications (ICMLA), pp. 292-297, Dec. 2011.
[9] F. Kurokawa, M. Motomura, K. Ueno and H. Maruta,“A new neural network predictor for digital control
dc-dc converter,” in Proc. IEEE Vehicle Power and
Propulsion Conference (VPPC), CD-ROM 4 pages,
Oct. 2012.
[10] H. Maruta, M. Motomura and F. Kurokawa, “A novel
timing control method for neural network based
digitally controlled dc-dc converter,” in Proc. IEEE
ECCE Europe European Power Electronics
Conference on Applications (EPE), CD-ROM 8 pages,
Nov. 2013.
[11] H. Maruta, D. Mitsutake, M. Motomura and F.
Kurokawa, “Transient response of reference modified
digital PID control dc-dc converters with neuralnetworkprediction,”
IEICE
Trans.
on
Communications, vol. E99-B, no. 11, pp. 2340-2350,
Nov. 2016.
[12] F. Kurokawa and J. Wang, “Topics of digital control
approaches for future-oriented power converters,”
IEICE Trans. on Nonlinear Theory and Its
Applications, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 306-321, Jul. 2018.
[13] M. Tanaka, H. Eto, Y. Mizuno, N. Matsui and F.
Kurokawa, “GA based optimization for configurationand operation of emergency generators in medical
facility using renewable energy,” International
Journal of Renewable Energy Research (IJRER), vol.
8, no. 1, pp. 200-207, Mar. 2018.
[14] M. Tanaka, H. Eto, Y. Mizuno, N. Matsui and F.
Kurokawa, “Multi-objective optimization using twostage EMO for renewable energy management inmedical facility,” International Journal of Renewable
Energy Research (IJRER), vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 15631571, Sep. 2018.

[Technology Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Application of AI to Network Operation*
Ryoichi Kawahara1, Keishiro Watanabe2,
Shigeaki Harada2, Takehiro Kawata3
1Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation and Design,
Toyo University, 2NTT Network Technology Laboratories,
NTT Corporation, 3NTT Advanced Technology Corporation
1. Introduction
In recent years, attention has been focused ontechnologies to detect network anomalies (such as
failures) by analyzing various data collected on
networks and to enhance and automate network control
by utilizing network virtualization technologies. In
particular, expectations for the application of artificial
intelligence (AI) are increasing. Through the first andsecond AI booms, it is currently the third AI boom
where machine learning and deep learning are
attracting attention [1, 2]. Machine learning makes it
possible to obtain patterns hidden in the data, andconsists of techniques such as identification,
regression/prediction, clustering, and rule-extraction. In
deep learning, the number of hidden layers in aconventional neural network is increased, and it isapplied to image recognition etc. In conventional
machine learning, features (points to pay attention tofor identification) need to be designed by someone withspecialized knowledge. In contrast, the features are
extracted automatically in deep learning.
Research and development on the enhancement of
network operation by applying AI such as machinelearning and deep learning to various data collected on
the networks are being developed. One of the researchdifficulties is owing to factors of performancedegradation risk, such as failure and congestion owing
to traffic concentration, becoming diverse and complex,
along with providing various network services.
Especially, as network virtualization such as
Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network
Functions Virtualization (NFV) (details are describedin Section 5.1) advances, the performance degradation
risk detection/identification becomes difficult owing tomultiplexing of functions and/or frequent changes in
network configuration by the virtualization. For
example, the root cause analysis needs to be enhanced
because the correspondence between physical andvirtual resources can change [3]. Furthermore, in a
virtualized network, we need to manage/control not
only physical resources, but virtual resources as well,which may increase the number of such resources.
Therefore, the control needs to be automated [4]. If thecontrol is automated, we can expect that a part of themanual operations by the network operators is also

automated, or complicated controls can be immediately
and frequently applied.
In this study, we describe research and development
trends on the application of AI toward advanced
network operation and automated control. First, we
divide the network operation flow for performancedegradation risk such as failure and congestion into
three phases: 1) detection of the performancedegradation risk, 2) root cause analysis, and 3) control
and recovery. Next, we describe the research andtechnology trends in each phase. We also introduce thecontent of our research efforts.
2. Network Operation Flow
As shown in Fig. 1, we divided the network
operation flow for performance degradation risk suchas failure and congestion into three phases: 1) detection,2) analysis, and 3) control/recovery [5]. The following
are the procedures utilized in each phase:(1) Anomaly detection: detects the change in network
state that causes performance degradation(2) Root cause analysis: identifies the location/factorof the cause of performance degradation(3) Control/recovery:
controls
to
avoid
the
performance degradation; recovers immediatelyfrom failure

Fig. 1 Network operation flow.
(based on Fig. 1 in [5])Subsequently, research and technology trends for thetechniques used in each phase are introduced.
Specifically, Section 3 describes anomaly detection
techniques, whereas Section 4 describes root cause* This paper is an English version of our previous paper published in IEICE Communications Society Magazine in 2018. The detailed
information is shown at the last page of this paper.

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analysis techniques, and Section 5 describes
control/fast recovery techniques. Section 5 also
introduces efforts to automate the entire network
operation flow. (To be precise, in Sections 3, 4, and 5,
we describe the techniques corresponding to each of
the phases, but, for example, the studies introduced asanomaly detection techniques in Section 3, may include
not only anomaly detection techniques, but also root
cause analysis techniques.)
3. Anomaly Detection Technology
We first describe technical challenges for anomaly
detection. As the network system becomes large andprovides various network services, we consider thatfactors causing performance degradation risk also
become diverse. Thus, we need to monitor various andhuge data to detect anomalies early. However, it may
be difficult to manually set the rules (thresholds) for
individual monitoring items appropriately. In addition,
failures hard to detect by such predetermined rules(such as silent failures) may occur. To solve these
problems, various anomaly detection techniques havebeen proposed. In the following, we classify theanomaly detection techniques (including rule-based
anomaly detection), and then describe thecharacteristics of each technique.
We classify the anomaly detection techniques asfollows, based on [6, 7]. First, from the viewpoint ofdata for learning, we classified them into unsupervisedand supervised methods. For example, we assume thatthe data for each monitoring item is collectedperiodically, and we use such data as input. In addition,
we consider the case when the actual response to
failure is recorded (i.e., trouble ticket), and suchinformation is used as teacher data, or not. i.e., theformer is a supervised case and the latter is anunsupervised case.
In the unsupervised case, only the normal state is
specified, and an anomaly is detected as the deviationof observed event from normal state (outlier). i.e., thenormal state is learned using data collected only during
normal times, and an anomaly is detected when thecurrent data deviates from the normal state (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Unsupervised vs. supervised methods.
In the supervised case, both normal and abnormal
states are specified, and an anomaly is detected as the12deviation of observed event from normal state and/or
the similarity to the abnormal state. At this juncture, weneed to label the input data used for learning as the datawhen abnormal, which is conducted using the teacher
data.
We further classify into rule-based andstatistical/machine learning-based methods, from theviewpoint of the method of judging deviation fromnormal state/similarity to abnormal state.
In the following, we explain each technique in detail
based on Fig. 3.
As rule-based and unsupervised methods, forexample, there is a method of detection by comparing
some numerical data with threshold. In rule-based andsupervised methods, we blacklist (abnormal) andwhitelist (normal) for the observed data, and evaluate
them by matching the data with the lists. Specifically,
we detect anomalies if some parts of the text log arematched with specific keywords. OS native commands
for text log monitoring are usually used for thispurpose. Integrated monitoring software also usually
have this kind of function. Here, a text log refers to atext log (for example, syslog, etc.) about changes in thestates of devices output from network devices.
There have been many research reports on
statistical/machine learning-based anomaly detection
methods. In these methods, instead of setting rules
and/or thresholds in advance, normal states are learned
and modeled from monitoring data to detect anomalies.
We classify them into time-series model based andrelationship model based, and explain typical methods
hereafter.

Fig. 3 Anomaly detection technology map.
In time-series model-based methods, for certain
monitoring item such as traffic volume on a link, aprediction model is constructed from the past timeseries data and an anomaly is detected when the current
observed value deviates from the predicted value (Fig.
4-(a)).
For example, we proposed an anomaly detection
method by predicting traffic using periodicity ofobservation data (traffic data) [8]. In ChangeFinder [9],an AR (Auto Regression) model is used to construct atime-series model, and an SDAR (Sequential
Discounting AR) learning algorithm is applied tohandle non-stationary time-series data. Based on thismodel, change points are detected by two-stage
learning. In the first stage, the degree of change at eachtime point is determined as a score, and outliers aredetected. The second stage of learning is performed

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

after smoothing the score, and only essential
fluctuations are detected by removing noise. Note that
ChangeFinder [9] can be applied not only to a single
traffic volume time-series but also time-series ofmultidimensional vectors.
With the relationship model based anomaly detection
method, a normal relationship model between multiple
monitoring items is constructed by learning, and ananomaly is detected based on whether the current
observation value deviates from the model (Fig. 4-(b)).
In this study, we further classify the methods into two
types, based on how the relationship model is given.
One is the method that models the correlations between
multiple monitoring items and detects an anomaly by
the deviation of the observed value from the model. We
call this type of method correlation based anomaly
detection. The other is based on dimension reduction.
Assuming that multiple dimensional data of multiple
monitoring items are generated from low-dimensional
factors, the relationship of the original data is modeledby dimension-reduction to detect an anomaly by
judging whether the observed value deviates from themodel. We call this type of method dimension
reduction based anomaly detection.

Fig. 4 Time-series model and relationship model
based methods.
As correlation based anomaly detection, there aremethods in [10] and [11] etc. For example, in [10], if
the prediction error is reduced by pairwise regression
using ARX model (AutoRegressive models with
eXogenous inputs) for multiple monitoring item data
observed during normal time, the model is learned as
the invariant between the two observations (invariant
relationship in normal state), and the anomaly isdetected from the collapse of the invariant. In [11], asparse graph is constructed with each variable as anode based on the relationship between individual
variables, and the degree of anomaly of each variable iscalculated by comparing the graph of the test data withthe graph of the reference data. There is also an
integrated log analysis technology [12] that detects
anomalies compoundly by relative analysis of various
performance values.
As an example of dimension reduction based
anomaly detection method, there is an approach thatuses principal component analysis (PCA) [13]. In [13],the traffic volume on each link in a network is used as
input. Lakhina et al. [13] showed that their proposed
method can detect anomaly, identify the underlying
origin-destination (OD) flow, which is the source of theanomaly, and estimate the amount of traffic involved in
the anomalous OD flow. Moreover, there is an anomaly
detection method using auto encoder (AE) (e.g., [14,15], which we have studied).
AE is a kind of deep learning that can ascertain thecomplicated structure inherent in data, and anomaly
detection by AE has been attracting attention in various
fields. In AE, the dimension of the hidden layer isreduced by setting the dimension of the hidden layer tobe smaller than that of the input/output layer, andlearning is performed to reproduce the data of the input
layer in the output layer. i.e., the dimension reduction isconducted at the hidden layer. It is assumed that normal
data can be represented in a low-dimensional manner,and an anomaly is detected by inputting the current
data to the AE, and regarding the distance between thevectors of the input and output layers as the degree of
anomaly.
Besides, there are many reports on network anomaly
detection. For example, there is a study [16] that
proposes an anomaly detection method for traffic data.
Please refer to [7] for various anomaly detection
techniques for traffic data. To study various network
data, there are NICE [17] that analyzes the relationshipbetween data, and SYNERGY [18], an extended
version of NICE.
At the end of this section, we describe thepreprocessing when inputting network data to each of
the methods described above. For numerical data suchas time-series of traffic volume, appropriate
measurement interval setting is crucial. For text log, it
is considered that rule-based methods are mainly used.
If we apply time-series model based or relationshipmodel based to text log, we need to convert the text log
into some numerical vector that summarizes useful
information for anomaly detection. As input to theanomaly detection method using AE [14], we converted
text log into IDs and quantified them using the numberof occurrences of each ID, where we used automaticclassification technology for text log [19]. The
integrated log analysis technology [12] extracts
characteristic log patterns from a large amount of text
log and analyzes them, together with numerical log, todetect anomalies and analyze the causes.
4. Root Cause Analysis Technology
After detecting anomaly, we need to identify its
cause. Here, we first explain the research challenge. As
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described in Section 3, we consider that factors of theanomalies become diverse and it therefore becomesdifficult to identify the root cause as the network
system becomes large and provides various network
services. For example, when anomaly occurs in a
device and its influence is propagated so that alerts invarious devices occur, it may be difficult to identify theanomalous device.
In this study, we classify root cause analysis
techniques into two types, according to the following
concept: We treat the root cause estimation as the
problem of estimating anomaly factor X from theobservation Y in the network. To solve this, there are
two types of approaches. The first is the method that
estimates/identifies X directly from Y, and the other isthe method that models the influence of X on Y, andthen estimates X taking into account the process of Y
being generated. We call the former identification
model based, and the latter generation model based.
Rule-based is a typical identification model based
method. Many of products on the market are rule-based,
and the items to be detected (observed values) and thecorresponding factors at that time are determined as
rules (for example, rule can be described as if-then; if
an alert A occurs, the factor is B). Moreover, a method
for automatically generating such rules has beenannounced [20]. With this method, from observations
such as alerts issued from network devices when an
anomaly such as a failure occurs, the rule between theanomaly factor and the observations is derived byextracting combinations of observations specific to theanomaly. In addition, this method improves theaccuracy of rules by learning rules in the daily
operation of maintenance personnel.
In addition, for root cause analysis/incident diagnosis,
a method of analyzing the relationship between timeseries data such as CPU utilization and events ofsystem tasks (such as disk-intensive tasks or CPUintensive tasks) [21], and a method of analyzing the lag(time dependency) between events [22] etc., have been
proposed.
As a generation model-based method, there is Shrink[23], which constructs a causal graph such as that inFig. 5 based on network configuration information, etc.
Here, Xi represents the state of network device i(normal or abnormal), and Yj represents the value ofobservation data j (e.g., 1 if alert occurs, 0 otherwise).
When there is a causal relationship between Xi and Yj,they are connected with an arrow. The degree of causal
relationship is represented by probability. For example,
based on the network configuration information, thedevice (node in this figure) to be analyzed is connectedto the observation data j in the network element (link inthis figure) with an arrow, when the node and the linkare connected. Under the model where Y is generated
according to this causal graph, the problem isestimating Xi when Yj is observed (calculating Xi thatmaximizes the probability under the condition that Yj isobserved).

14

In a model such as Shrink, that expresses the causal
relationship with probabilities, Gestalt [24] reduces thecomputational complexity to speed up, by fixing someprobabilities of the causal graph to 1 or 0 for
simplification. CauseInfer [25] estimates the causal
graph between network performance indices from dataand identifies events that cause anomalies. In [26], we
proposed a method of root cause diagnosis for rare
failures having two features: observation errors (e.g.,
no alerts occur even in case of failure) and unexpectedcausal relations. Specifically, an extended model thatcan cope with the two rare-failure features as describedabove was proposed by extending the causal graphshown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 5 Causal graph.
5. Control/Recovery Technology
In Section 5.1, we describe trends in virtualization
technologies that are important in automating the entire
operation flow as shown in Fig. 1. In Section 5.2, we
describe control algorithms used in the control phase of
Fig. 1. In Section 5.3, we describe the techniques in therecovery phase of Fig. 1. Finally, in Section 5.4, we
describe research trends toward automation ofoperation flows.
5.1 Virtualization Technology
Similar to server virtualization that makes multiple
virtual machines available on a physical server, theconcept of virtualization in communication networks
such as SDN and NFV is being realized.
SDN is a concept of controlling individual devices
integrally over the entire network as a unit by software,instead of conventionally performing configuration
settings individually for network devices. OpenFlow isa key technology for realizing SDN. Its standardizationand efforts towards its popularization is being
promoted by mainly ONF (Open Networking
Foundation) [27], which was established in 2011.
NFV is a concept that separates software andhardware of a network device that has been
conventionally provided as a dedicated appliance, andrealizes network functions on a virtualization platform
built with general-purpose servers. The NFV standard
architecture and specifications are being promoted by
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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

which was established in 2012 under the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). In
addition, the concept of MANO (Management andOrchestration) that virtualizes computers, storage
devices, and network devices, and controls thevirtualized devices was presented by the ISG in 2013[29]. The NFV architecture proposed by the ISG
consists mainly of VNF (Virtual Network Function),
NFVI (NFV Infrastructure) and NFV MANO. MANO
plays an important role in building and executing
network services quickly and flexibly, by providing
management function for physical and virtual resources(Virtualized
InfrastructureManager),
VNF
management
function(VNF
Manager),andorchestration function (NFV Orchestrator) (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6 Network virtualization technology
by SDN/NFV.
Owing to the spread of products supporting network
virtualization technology and the performance
improvement, communication carriers are also studying
for efficient and flexible utilization of network
resources. In addition, discussions on NFV
infrastructure construction using white box switch(bare metal switch) and OSS (Open Source Software)such as OpenStack [30] are actively conducted.
By the introduction of network virtualization
technology, it is expected that it is possible to automate(with software operation) operations such as device
settings that have been conventionally conductedmanually by network operators. Specifically, SDN
control software makes it possible to conduct thesettings of the IP address for each device andcommunication paths etc. integrally. Furthermore, it ispossible to construct equipment and change the amountof equipment according to the demand, by preparing
network functions as VNFs on a virtualization platform
built with general-purpose servers. In addition, it isexpected to provide network services on demand byconstructing a virtual network (SFC: Service Function
Chaining) by combining VNFs with communicationroutes flexibly. In future, by combining with network
state information collection/analysis, it is expected toachieve an advanced autonomous control that conductsa specific control when some conditions are satisfied,or automatically calculates/applies communicationroutes that satisfy the prespecified objective such as
efficient utilization of network resource and loadbalancing. During the Open Networking Summit held

once a year by ONF [31], carriers, cloud service
providers, and OSS communities have reported on
network virtualization using OSS, and in recent years,
ONAP (Open Network Automation Platform) [32] that
supports network operation through network datacollection, analysis, and feedback control has been
attracting attention.
5.2 Control Algorithm
To accomplish an autonomous network control as
described in Section 5.1, it is important to develop an
algorithm to achieve a prespecified objective bysoftware control. In research on network virtualization
technologies, allocating/reallocating a virtual network
on a virtualization platform so that a prespecified
objective is satisfied is called Virtual Network
Embedding (VNE), and the formulated problem toderive an algorithm for the control objective andconstraints on resources on the virtualization platform
is called VNE problem.
The research challenge here is that we need to take
into account a huge number of combinations ofobjectives, constraints and resources if various services
can be provided as virtualization progresses. Many
studies on the VNE problems have been reported [33],and finding the optimal solution of VNE problem isknown to be NP-hard [34].
In [35], a VNE problem for providing SFC thattransits multiple VNFs is formulated as an integer
linear programming problem, and solved bycommercial mathematical optimization solver in a
relatively small topology. A heuristic method is also
proposed. Ref. [36] proposed that a joint optimizationof VNF allocation and route between VNFs isformulated as a mixed integer linear programming
problem, and solved using a commercial mathematicaloptimization solver. In [37], a heuristic method is
proposed for joint optimization problem taking into
account VNF allocation, route, and reallocation cost. In[38], a tabu search based method is proposed for
dynamic VNE problem, taking into account server
resource scheduling for VNF allocation. In [39], amethod by reinforcement learning is proposed forsolving VNE problem taking into account dynamic
traffic fluctuation. Ref. [40] proposed a framework thatcan cope with the change of objective function for
VNE problem with multiple objective functions, and amethod of calculating Pareto solutions at high speed byapplying genetic algorithm.
In the VNE problem, the viewpoints that
communication carriers attach importance to are theefficiency of equipment utilization and service
performance degradation avoidance, and continuity. As
the studies on realization of autonomous control with
network virtualization technology by the researchgroup of the second and third authors in this study,
there are a heuristic algorithm that presents an efficient
allocation in the future (maximizes the number ofvirtual networks that can be accommodated) for timevarying demands for virtual networks [41], an15

[Technology Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

extendable NFV-integrated control method using
reinforcement learning for determining VNF
placements and routes between VNFs under various
requirements [42], predictive routing algorithm foravoiding network congestion [43, 44] etc.
5.3 Technology for Fast Recovery
Research and development are also progressing
toward speeding up and automating recovery work.
Generally, when a failure occurs, in addition to the log
been automatically recorded by the system, a trouble
ticket is created in which the operator records the statusof the failure and the history of recovery work. When a
new failure occurs, the operator refers to the system log
to understand the status of the system, searches for thetrouble ticket related to the failure, and refers to thepast response procedures to conduct the recovery work.
In order to accomplish fast recovery work, we needto efficiently search for necessary information fromsystem logs and trouble tickets, creating a technicalchallenge. There are various research reports on studies
for efficient search. For example, there are machinelearning based methods such as hierarchical clustering[45] as method of understanding trends on system
failures by clustering trouble tickets, rule-based wordmatching [46], topic model based [47] etc. As methodsof grasping recovery work corresponding to theoccurred event to shorten the recovery work time, there
are methods of presenting the related trouble ticket by
topic model [48] or deep learning [49], and of
searching for contact information [50].
To help operators read and understand a large
amount of text promptly, we have proposed a methodof workflow extraction for service operation using
multiple unstructured trouble tickets [51]. The methodof extracting useful information such as businessprocess by analyzing logs is called process mining [52].
Ref. [53] proposed a process mining for system logs.
There is a tool called Run Book Automation (RBA)
for automation of workflow execution. As typical tool,
there are StackStorm [54], an open source platform,
and other tools provided by network equipment vendors.
In the future, it is expected that the automation ofrecovery work will be progressed by such methods.
5.4 Automation of Operation Flow
Research to automate the entire flow from detection
to control is being advanced. For example, toward
control automation, there is a research on automatic
generation of control procedure and automatic
acquisition of the necessary expertise [55]. As NFVautomated failure recovery, there is a report on thedevelopment of anomaly sign detection function andthat of automatic recovery procedure generation
function using deep learning, and experimental proof
obtained in a test environment [56]. Besides, acompletely autonomous network vision [57] has beenannounced. Research on automation of network
operation/control is expected to continue in the future.

16

6. Conclusion
In this study, as research/technology trends foradvanced network operations using AI, we described
techniques of network anomaly detection/analysis using
various network data, those of enhancing/automating
network control using network virtualization
technology etc. and of speeding up/automating
recovery work. We also introduced our research efforts.
As a future challenge, we consider that discussion on
the degree to which network operation can be
automated is required. Another challenge is theinterpretability to output of deep learning. For example,
we used auto encoder (a kind of deep learning) for
anomaly detection [14, 15], but this method only
outputs a determination as to whether or not it is ananomaly. However, operators cannot do the next
actions if they do not know the reason why it is judgedthat anomaly occurs. Hence, we have also studied on amethod of inferring causal parameters of the detected
anomalies [58]. This is just an example, but weconsider that, as the application of deep learning
progresses, we need to distinguish which parts of
network operation can be automated and which parts
requires interpretation/judgement for the output, andalso need some mechanism for the interpretability inthe latter case.
7. Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr. Keisuke Ishibashi, Mr.
Masahiro Kobayashi, Mr. Yasuhiro Ikeda, Mr. Akio
Watanabe, Dr. Yoichi Matsuo, and Mr. Akito Suzuki
from NTT Network Technology Laboratories (thisaffiliation was at the time of writing the original paper[59]) for their cooperation in writing the original paper
[59].
We
would
like to thank Editage(www.editage.com) for English language editing.
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X. Hesselbach, “Virtual Network Embedding: A
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[Technology Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2[38] R. Mijumbi, J. Serrat, J. L. Gorricho, N. Bouten, F.
D. Turck and S. Davy, “Design and Evaluation of
Algorithms for Mapping and Scheduling ofVirtual Network Functions,” 1st IEEE Conference
on Network Softwarization (NetSoft), Apr. 2015.
[39] R. Mijumbi, J. L. Gorricho, J. Serrat, M. Claeys, F.
D. Turck and S. Latre, “Design and Evaluation of
Learning Algorithms for Dynamic Resource
Management in Virtual Networks,” Network
Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS),
2014.
[40] M. Yoshida, W. Shen, T. Kawabata, K. Minato
and W. Imajuku, “MORSA: A Multi-Objective
Resource Scheduling Algorithm for NFVInfrastructure,”
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Operations
andManagement Symposium (APNOMS), 2014 16th
Asia-Pacific, Sep. 2014.
[41] M. Kobayashi, R. Matsumura, T. Kimura, T.
Tsuchiya and K. Noritake, “A Study on Effective
Resource Allocation Method to Virtual Networkwith Service Accommodation Degree,”IEICE
Technical Report, vol. 115, no. 404, NS2015-151,
pp. 29-34, Jan. 2016. (in Japanese)[42] A. Suzuki, R. Kawahara, M. Kobayashi, S. Harada,
Y. Takahashi and K. Ishibashi, “Extendable NFVIntegrated Control Method Using Reinforcement
Learning,” IEICE Trans. Commun. (to be
published)[43] Y. Takahashi, K. Ishibashi, M. Tsujino, N.
Kamiyama, K. Shiomoto, T. Otoshi, Y. Ohsita andM. Murata, “Separating Predictable andUnpredictable Flows via Dynamic Flow Mining
for Effective Traffic Engineering,” IEEE ICC,
2016.
[44] A. Suzuki, M. Kobayashi, S. Harada and R.
Kawahara, “Routing Control Utilizing External
Observed Information on Large-volume Traffic
Generation,” IEICE General Conference, B-7-37,
Mar. 2017. (in Japanese)[45] A. Medem, M.-I. Akodjenou and R. Teixeira,“TroubleMiner: Mining Network Trouble
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Integrated Network Management-Workshops(IM’09), pp. 113-119, Jun. 2009.
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May 2015.
[48] W. Zhou, L. Tang, T. Li, L. Shwartz and G.
Grabarnik, “Resolution Recommendation for
Event Tickets in Service Management,”
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18

Network Management (IM’15), pp. 287-295, May
2015.
[49] W. Zhou, W. Xue, R. Baral, Q. Wang, C. Zeng, T.
Li, J. Xu, Z. Liu, L. Shwartz and G. Ya. Grabarnik,“STAR: A System for Ticket Analysis andResolution,” 23rd ACM Int. Conf. on Knowledge
Discovery and Data Mining (KDD’17), pp. 21812190, Aug. 2017.
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Anerousis, “EasyTicket: A Ticket Routing
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2008.
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Watanabe, T. Kimura, Y. Matsuo, K. Shiomoto
and R. Kawahara, “Workflow Extraction for
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Trouble Tickets,” IEICE Trans. Inf. & Syst.,
Vol.E101-D, No.4, pp. 1030-1041, Apr. 2018.
[52] W. M. P. van der Aalst, “Process Mining:
Discovery, Conformance and Enhancement of
Business Processes,” Springer, 2011.
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Aalst, “Aligning Event Logs and Process Models
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11, 2017)[55] T. Kuroda, M. Nakanoya, T. Kuwahara and H.
Shimonishi, “Study on Automation of Operation
Phase in Network Management -Towards FullAutomation of Network Management with
Utilizing AI Technologies-,” IEICE Society
Conference, BT-2-2, Sep. 2017. (in Japanese)[56] M. Miyazawa and T. Miyamoto, “Perspective ofAutomated Fault Recovery Techniques for NFVusing Artificial Intelligence,” IEICE Society
Conference, BT-2-4, Sep. 2017. (in Japanese)[57] https://www.juniper.net/us/en/dm/the-self-drivingnetwork/ (Access: Dec. 27, 2017)[58] Y. Ikeda, K. Ishibashi, Y. Nakano, K. Watanabe
and R. Kawahara, “Anomaly Detection andInterpretation using Multimodal Autoencoder andSparse Optimization,” arXiv:1812.07136v1, 18
Dec. 2018.
[59] R. Kawahara, K. Watanabe, S. Harada and T.
Kawata, “Application of AI to Network
Operation,” IEICE Commun. Mag., No. 45, pp.
29-38, 2018. (in Japanese)
This study is an English version of our previous study
presented in IEICE Communications Society Magazine[59]. Some parts are slightly modified, or omitted
owing to space limitation. All the figures in this study
are reused from [59] with the permission of the IEICE.

[IEICE-CS Activities Now]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

2019 IEICE Fellow Conferred on 9 IEICE-CS
Members
Nazuki Honda
Director of Planning and Member Activities,
IEICE Communications Society
1. Introduction
IEICE Fellow is conferred on IEICE members who
are recognized as having made a significant
contribution to the institute in academic, technical or
related fields. This article introduces the 2019 IEICE
Fellow winners.
2. Conferment
Fellow Conferment Ceremony is usually held inMarch every year during IEICE General Conference,and the president of IEICE handed a fellow badge anda certification plate to each new Fellow. However, in
this year, the IEICE General Conference was cancelled,thus the conferment ceremony was not held.

In 2019, IEICE Fellow is conferred on 24 IEICE
members including 9 from Communications Society(CS) who are listed in Table 1. The past Fellow
members can be viewed at IEICE Web site below:
https://www.ieice.org/jpn_r/awards/fellow/index.html(in Japanese)
We have great respect and deep gratitude for theircontributions.
3. Next Fellow Conferment Ceremony
The 2020 ceremony is going to be held in Tokyo
Institute of Technology, March, 2021.

Table 1 New IEICE Fellows from Communications Society.
NameContribution contents

MasakiAIDA

Innovative Research on Hierarchical Distributed Control and Online Social Networks

Ryoichi
SHINKUMA

Cross-disciplinary Research on Cooperation in Heterogeneous Networks

SachioSEMMOTO

Realization of Digital Society by Serial Entrepreneurship Applying New AccessTechnologies

MakotoTAROMARU

Editing Activities of IEICE Transactions and Founding Letter Journal ComEX

Hiroyuki
TSUJI

Research and Development of Wireless Communication Systems and Array Signal
Processing for Aircraft

Hideki
TODE

Research on Advanced Infrastructure Technologies for Content Retrieval, Acquisition andDistribution

Kazuhiko
FUKAWA

Study on Adaptive Equalization and Adaptive Interference Suppression Techniques for
Digital Mobile Communications

ItsuroMORITA

Research on Transoceanic-class Ultra-long-haul Transmission Technologies for Highspeed Optical Signals

Tetsuya
YOKOTANI

Traffic Control Technologies in High Speed Communication Systems and Their Promotion
by International Standardization

19

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Annual Report of Technical Committee on
Information Networks (IN)
Seiichiro Mochida†, Shingo Kashima††, Shuntaro Kashihara†††and Hiroyasu Obata†††††NTT Corporation, ††NTT Communications Corporation,†††
KDDI Research, Inc., ††††Hiroshima City University
1. Introduction
The technical committee on Information Networks(IN) is one of technical committees of theCommunications Society of the IEICE [1]. The IN
addresses a broad spectrum of issues associated withinformation networks and provides a forum forresearchers and engineers to discuss various researchand development topics. The chairman is Mr. Takuji
Kishida of NTT Advanced Technology Corporation.
The vice chairman is Prof. Kenji Ishida of Hiroshima
City University. The secretaries are Mr. Shingo Kashima
of NTT Communications, Mr. Seiichiro Mochida of
NTT Corporation, Dr. Hiroyasu Obata of Hiroshima
City University and Mr. Shuntaro Kashihara of KDDI
Research, Inc. This document presents the IN’s annual
report for activities from April 2019 to March 2020.
2. IN Activities
The IN is one of the most active technical committeesof the IEICE Communications Society. The IN held
seven technical meetings from April 2019 to March
2020, some of which are co-organized with anotherinstitute (IEE) or other technical committees in IEICE(RCS, NV, CCS, CS, NS, ICTSSL, IA, and ICN). Many
researchers participated in the meetings and reported
their latest technical research and development results.
The venues and the main topics of each meeting areshown in Table 1.
Each technical report is submitted in a paper or slide
format and published as a Technical Report of the IEICE.
Authors of selected papers have received the 26th
Information Networks Research Awards, and the young
first authors (32 years old or less) of selected papers havereceived the 5th Young Researcher Awards ofInformation Networks in March 2020.
This year, the following three excellent papers wereselected from 116 papers for the 26th Information
Networks Research Awards.
- Yoshiki Miura, Hiroyasu Obata, Chisa Takano, andKenji Ishida, “A Media Access Control using
Capture Effect Improving Throughput Fairness
among WLAN Systems.”- Masaki Aida, Chisa Takano, and Masaki Ogura,“On the Fundamental Equation of User Dynamics
and the Structure of Online Social Networks.”

20-

Yuka Komai, Tatsuaki Kimura, Masahiro
Kobayashi, and Shigeaki Harada, “Traffic
Prediction by Extracting Users' Access Patterns.”

In addition, three young authors won the 5th Young
Researcher Awards of Information Networks. The
selected papers are as follows.
- Hinano Uegata, and Haruhisa Hasegawa, “On
Simulation Evaluation for Support System ofWatching Over Children with Proximity Sensing.”- Yoshitaka Koitabashi, Yuki Inoue, Syota Uchiyama,
and Osamu Mizuno, “Transmission controlling
Method based on Remaining Battery for Delay
Tolerant Networking.”- Akito Suzuki, and Shigeaki Harada, “Dynamic
Virtual Resource Allocation Method Using Multiagent Deep Reinforcement Learning.”
IN has commended those who have contributed torevitalizing IN since last year. The 2nd DistinguishedContributions Award of Information Network are Mr.
Yuta Kobayashi and Mr. Takeshi Suehiro with theirgreat support on the IN/NS research workshops for three
years, co-awarded by the technical committee on
Network Systems (NS) and IN.
3. Reference[1] Technical Committee on Information Networks
http://www.ieice.org/cs/in/eng/, accessed April 5,2020.

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Table 1. Technical meeting schedule.
Date

Venue

Main topics

Num. ofreportsNum. of participants
each day

May.
16-17
2019

Keio Univ.
(Yokohama)

Ad-Hoc/Sensor Networks/MANET, Mobile
Networks, M2M/IoT Communications,
Wi-Fi, IEEE802.15 (ZigBee) and others

13

67, 56Aug.
1-2

Kiki Shiretoko
Natural Resort(Shari)

Network Science, Future Networks,
Cloud/SDN/Virtualization, Contents
Distribution, etc.

934, 31Sep.
5-6

Research Institute ofElectricalCommunication,
Tohoku Univ.
(Sendai)

Session Management (SIP/IMS),Interoperability/Standardization,
NGN/NwGN/Future Networks, Cloud/Data
Center Networks, SDN (OpenFlow,etc.)/NFV, IPv6, Machine Learning, etc.

7

72, 72Oct.
17-18

Beppu International
Convention Center(Beppu)Anti-Cyber Attack, Anti-Disaster/Failure,
BCP/Resilience, Smart Grid, Energy
Saving, Data Analyzing, etc.

1545, 38Dec.
19-20

Satellite Campus
Hiroshima(Hiroshima)

Performance Analysis and Simulation,
Robustness, Traffic and Throughput
Measurement, Quality of Service (QoS)
Control, Congestion Control, Overlay
Network/P2P, IPv6, Multicast, Routing,
DDoS, etc.

20

40, 57

Jan.
23-24
2020

WINC AICHI(Nagoya)Contents Distribution, Social Networking
Services, Data Analytics and Processing
Platform, Big Data, etc.

1126, 13Mar.
5-6

Royal Hotel Okinawa
Zanpa Misaki(Yomitan)73

Canceled due to
COVID-19(coronavirus disease2019) effect

General Topics and Workshop

21

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on the Sixth ENRI International Workshop
on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2019)
Yutaka Fukuda
Secretary General of EIWAC2019
Electronic Navigation Research Institute,
National Institute of Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology, Japan
1. Introduction
The Sixth ENRI International Workshop on
ATM/CNS (EIWAC2019) was held on October 29-31,
2019 at the Nakano Central Park Conference, Tokyo,
Japan. It was organized by the Electronic Navigation
Research Institute (ENRI), National Institute of
Maritime, Port and Aviation Technology (MPAT),
Japan, in cooperation with the IEICE and otherorganizations. The theme of EIWAC2019 was“Exploring Ideas for World Aviation Challenges.”
2. EIWAC History and Overview
EIWAC is a biennial event which started in 2009 [1].
It has focused on the research and development ofoperational improvement in Air Traffic Management
(ATM)
and
its
enabling
technologies
inCommunication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS). It
has contributed to the global harmonization of researchand development with the participation of a wide rangeof speakers from international organizations, regulators,
service providers, industries, research organizations,
universities, and airspace users etc.
On the first day, we had seven keynote presentations
and a panel discussion by opinion leaders, and on thesecond and third day, three special presentations and 18
technical sessions were held. In total, 63 oralpresentations and 9 poster presentations were presented
at three parallel technical sessions. All thepresentations were categorized into Academic Track of
research activities and Interchange Track of latest
technical information exchange. The total number ofparticipants was 861 from 19 countries. Four
exhibitions of SWIM (System Wide Information
Management), Foreign Object Debris Detection System,
SBAS (Satellite-Based Augmentation System) and
CARATS (Collaborative Actions for Renovation of Air
Traffic Systems) Open data took place in the foyer. The
welcome reception was held on the first day evening in
the foyer.
3. Keynote Speech
EIWAC2019 was commenced with the opening
address by Prof. Hiroyuki Yamato, the President of
MPAT.
The plenary session was organized with keynote
speeches and a panel discussion.
At first, Mr. Stephen P. Creamer (Director, Air
Navigation Bureau, International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO)) began with an introduction to
22

Fig. 1 Keynote Speech by Mr. Stephen Creamer
Director, ICAO ANB.
the Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP) and the Global
Aviation Safety Plan (GASP), and discussed about thelatest initiatives such as the digital aviation ecosystem,
expanding new users and new needs in the aviation,
cyber security, trust frameworks, and digital
certification.
Mr. Florian Guillermet (Executive Director, SESAR
Joint Undertaking) focused on Digital Transformation(DX) in the aviation and activities to build
infrastructure suitable for future air traffic expansion in
his presentation.
Mr. Christopher Loring (Manager, NextGen
International Office, FAA) spoke on NextGen's
progress and achievements, international initiatives, thepath to TBO (Trajectory Based Operations), prospects
for the next 20 years (high altitude operations, UAM(Urban Air Mobility)), UTM (Unmanned Aircraft
Systems Traffic Management), and activities for the
future.
Mr. Tohru Kawaharabata (Director, Air Navigation
Services Department, Japan Civil Aviation Bureau)
stated on the progress of CARATS, such as SWIM as
well as challenges for PBN (Performance Based
Navigation), data communications, international
harmonization and international digitization.
Mr. Naoki Tanaka (Director of Corporate Strategy
Department, Corporate Strategy & Planning Division,
JAL) mentioned on the outlook of the aviation market,
activities of the Innovation Lab for AI, robotics,
maintenance applications, VR training, and corporate
strategy, including efforts to achieve the SDGs.
Mr. Yoshiaki Tsuda (Vice President, ANA Digital
Design Lab & Avatar Division, ANA), Mr. Akira
Fukabori, and Mr. Kevin Kajitani (Co-Directors Avatar
Division, ANA) introduced drone and space businesses
as innovation initiatives, and presented about its avatar
activities (ANA AVATAR XPRIZE with the X Prize

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Foundation, Avatar X Program with JAXA, platform
avatar-in).
Mr. Shigeru Ozeki (Director General, ENRI)
introduced the accumulation of aviation knowledge andthe digitization of ATM/CNS for that purpose, therelationship between innovation and standardization,and the use of EIWAC.
4. Panel Discussion
The panel discussion was focused on the“Digitalization in Aviation: A Standardization
Perspective,” which was the final item of the plenary
session. Digital transformation in aviation was an
emerging topic and was referred to as a pivotal elementin terms of future technological proliferation.
Moderators were Mr. William C. Johnson (NASA),
who is one of the EIWAC TPC (Technical Program
Committee) external committee members and Mr.
Hajime Yoshimura (JCAB), who is a former Presidentof the ICAO Air Navigation Commission. Panelists
were Mr. Creamer (ICAO), Mr. Terry McVenes(President and CEO, RTCA), and Mr. Christian
Schleifer (Secretary General, EUROCAE).
Initially, the topics were provided by the Standards
Developing Organizations EUROCAE and RTCA,
followed by discussions by moderators and questions
from the audience. Discussions were held on the needfor faster standardizations and regulations to ensure
safety while responding to new users in the aviation
field, and the effectiveness of gathering and discussing
stakeholders from the early stage of standardization.
5. Invited Talks
Mr. Christian Schleifer (EUROCAE) delivered apresentation on current and future aviation
standardization activities in EUROCAE. Mr. Akbar
Sultan (Director, Airspace Operations and Safety
Program, NASA) presented recent activities on NASA
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. Mr. Patrick
Souchu (Program Director, DSNA) expressed on
sharing trajectory information for TBO.
6. Technical Sessions
In total, 18 technical sessions were divided into 14
categories such as ATM Performance / ATM
Modelling / Airport Management / AI for ATM /Aviation Weather / Trajectory Management / UTM /Traffic Capacity & Congestion Management / SWIM /Surveillance / Aviation Safety / Global Tracking &Related Technologies / GNSS / Space Weather.
7. Student Awards and Selected Papers
Since the 4th EIWAC (2015), TPC has selected
excellent student presenters and awarded the “Best
Student Paper Award” with the aim of encouraging
young ATM/CNS researchers. Mr. Philippe
Monmousseau (ENAC, France Civil Aviation Univ.)
was the winner of the EIWAC2019 Best Student
Award for the paper titled “Passengers on social media:
A real-time estimator of the state of the US airtransportation system”. This study is about estimating
the number of delayed flights at major airports in the
United States using social media Twitter data.

Fig. 2 EIWAC2019 Keynote Speakers,
TPC members and guests.
Since EIWAC2013, papers with innovative researchideas and outstanding quality are reviewed and selected
for the publication in the “Air Traffic Management andSystems” [2-4] series in collaboration with Springer.
The fourth book in the series, “Selected Papers of
EIWAC2019” is under process for publication.
8. Conclusion
At EIWAC2019, we learned about international
initiatives to address new aviation users, the use of
ICT-related technologies such as digital transformationand trust frameworks in the aviation field.
A post survey conducted showed that 87% of the
respondents marked a good rating while 88% expressed
their interest in participating in the next EIWAC.
The next EIWAC is scheduled to be held in autumn
2021 in Tokyo. Call-for-Papers for EIWAC2021 will
be released in autumn 2020. Please visit our EIWAC
site for further information at the following URL. We
welcome your submission to EIWAC.
http://www.enri.go.jp/eiwac/index_e.html
9. Acknowledgment
ENRI thanks international organizations, national
administrative agencies, service providers, operators,
manufacturers, research organizations, universities, andacademic societies for their support in making
EIWAC2019 a great success.
ENRI also thanks the external committee members of
TPC who made great contributions to review andassign papers for technical sessions.
10. References[1] Shigeru Ozeki, “Drafting Future Skies EIWAC2017,” IEICE Communications Society GLOBAL NEWSLETTER, Vol.42, No.2, pp. 2829, June 2018.
[2] ENRI ed., “Air Traffic Management and SystemsSelected Papers of the 3rd ENRI International
Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2013),” ISBN
978-4-431-54474-6, Springer, 2014.
[3] ENRI ed., “Air Traffic Management and Systems
II - Selected Papers of the 4th ENRI International
Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2015),” ISBN
978-4-431-56421-8, Springer, 2017.
[4] ENRI ed., “Air Traffic Management and Systems
III - Selected Papers of the 5th ENRI International
Workshop on ATM/CNS (EIWAC2017),” ISBN
978-981-13-7085-4, Springer, 2019.
23

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Annual Report of Technical Committee on
Information and Communication Management (ICM)
Saburo Seto (NTT), ICM Secretary
Haruo Oishi (NTT), ICM Secretary
Hiroki Nakayama (BOSCO Technologies), ICM Assistant
1. Introduction
The technical committee on Information andCommunication Management (ICM) is a technicalcommittee of the Communications Society of the
IEICE [1]. This article briefly reports the last year’s
activities of ICM, and introduces the upcoming English
session.
2. Activities
The ICM held two-day technical meetings 4 times
from May 2019 to January 2020. The venues and themain topics of each meeting are shown in Table 1. In
addition, 3 special sessions were sponsored by ICM as
shown in Table 2.
Of particular note, in the English session in 2019
IEICE Society Conference at Osaka University, thenumber of papers reached 30 in total. This session was
hosted and presented entirely in English. The purposeof this session is to promote the globalization of IEICE
by providing the participants staying in Japan orTable 1. ICM Technical Meetings in FY 2019.

No. Date
1
May
23-24

Venue
Osaka University(Osaka)Main Topics
Service Management,
Operation/Administration,
Security Management, etc.

2

Jul.
11-12

Management Function,
Management Theory, etc.

3

Nov.
21-22

Asahikawa City
International
Conference Hall
(Hokkaido)
Kobe University(Hyogo)

4

Jan.
9-10

5†

Mar.
2-3

Network Quality, Network
Management and Measurement,
Network Virtualization
Arkas SASEBO
Applications and Research(Nagasaki)
Opportunities of Life Log, OfficeInformation System and Business
Management
Nobumoto Ohama Element Management,
Memorial HallManagement Functionalities,(Okinawa)
Operations and Management
Technologies, etc.

Joint
IPSJIOTIPSJCSEC
-

CQ
NS
NV
LOIS

joining from overseas with more opportunities forpresentations and discussions in English.
Unfortunately, the last meeting and ICM workshop,
which were scheduled during March, were cancelled
because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In
the ICM workshop, the panel session was planned, andthe four invited speakers would have presented andwould discussed the theme with the attendees (theapproximately 60 researchers had applied to thisworkshop). ICM committee is re-planning the similar
session to hold in one of the meetings in 2020.
3. Awards and Upcoming Event
The winners are shown in Table 3. The English
Session Encouragement Award is given to the authorsof the best papers of the English session every year (Fig.
1). ICM committee is now calling for submission for theupcoming English session. The deadline is early in July.
4. Reference[1] ICM, http://www.ieice.org/~icm/eng/
Table 3. Winners of ICM Awards in 2019.

Award

Research
Award

Winners
Jumpei Yamashita,
Hidetaka Koya,
Hajime Nakajima,
Kohji Tsuji
Akari Tsuji,
Yuki Miyazaki,
Shinsaku Numata,
Kazukuni Koyama,
Masakatsu Sawada

EnglishSessionBadr Mochizuki,
Encourage
Takuji Tachibana
ment
Award

Title

Deep Neural Network-based Gaze
Estimation using Interaction-informed
Electrooculography
Implementation and Evaluation of
Zero-Touch Operation System for
Recovery Operation of a Large-Scale
Cloud Services
Online Lightpath Establishment with
Expanded/Contracted Service
Provisioning in Elastic Optical
Networks-†No.5 technical meeting was cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Table 2. Special Sessions by ICM in FY 2019.

Title
EnglishSession

Date
Sep.
10

APNOMS
2019

Sep.
18-20

ICM
Workshop†Mar.
2

Remarks
As one of thesymposium
sessions in IEICE
Society Conference
The premierconference in the
Asia Pacific region
sponsored by ICM
In conjunction withICM TechnicalCommittee
Meeting

Theme
Network and Service Design,
Control and Management
Management in a CyberPhysical World
The future of mobile
communications with a view
to democratizing information
communications†ICM Workshop was cancelled because of the coronavirus outbreak.

24

Fig. 1 ICM Annual Award (English Session
Encouragement award).

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on NS English Session at 2020 IEICE
General Conference ‒BS-1 In-Network Intelligence
for Design, Management, and Control of Future
Networks and Services‒
Tatsuaki Kimura*, Yosuke Tanigawa**, Shinya Kawano***,Shiro Mizuno***, Akihiro Nakao****, and Yoshikatsu Okazaki****Osaka Univ., **Osaka Pref. Univ.,***
NTT Corp., ****The Univ. of Tokyo
1. Introduction
The 2020 IEICE General Conference was to be held at
Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan, on March
17-20, 2020. In the general conference, the IEICE
Technical Committee on Network Systems (NS) [1]organized the full English symposium session entitled“In-Network Intelligence for Design, Management, andControl of Future Networks and Services” as one of thesymposium sessions hosted by IEICE Communications
Society. The technical committee on NS has beenorganizing the full English session since 2005 in orderto promote the globalization of IEICE. The English
session offers a good opportunity for the researchers inJapan and those from overseas to make presentations anddiscuss in English. Although the general conference wascanceled due to concerns about COVID-19, the English
session this year was held online via Zoom [2] on March
17.
2. Topics and Statistics
Table 1 and Fig. 1 show the recent themes in the past
three years and the number of submissions from 2006 to2020 of the English session. Although the number ofsubmissions tends to decrease in recent years, we believethat it will increase in the near future because many
academic organizations in Japan have put an enormous
effort into their globalization in recent years.
In this year, 23 papers were submitted to the English
session, among which 6 papers were presented at theonline conference. The submitted papers include avariety of interesting research topics related to “innetwork intelligence”, such as security/privacy, network
virtualization technologies, Internet of Things (IoT)
networks, wired/wireless networking, and machinelearning.
This year’s English session was held online for the
first time. All the speakers gave presentations by screen
sharing, and question and answer sessions were also held
online. Many attendees connected to the online session(more than 20 accounts), and the discussions among
attendees and the speakers were very active similar to an
ordinal offline session in the past conferences.

Table 1. NS English Session in the Past Three Years.
Year
2018
2019
2020

Theme
Innovative Information Communication Technologies for
Future Network System Supporting Information-oriented
Industry
Compositive Information Communication Technologies
and Applications for Future Network Systems
In-Network Intelligence for Design, Management, andControl of Future Networks and Services

Fig. 1 Number of submissions.
3. Conclusion
The online NS English Session was very successful
thanks to many excellent papers, active discussions, andhelpful technical support of the executive committee of
the IEICE General Conference. We believe that thisactivity was fruitful for all participants and contributed
to the globalization of IEICE.
Although the main objective of the English session isto provide a valuable place where the researchers canspend the whole conference with only English, thisbecomes difficult if the number of submissions
continues to decrease. Hence, the technical committee
on NS continues to encourage submissions fromJapanese and overseas students as their first steps tointernational conferences. In addition, NS English
session awards are given to some selected papers in eachyear to encourage their continuous activities [3].
Finally, we would like to give special thanks to Prof.
Yoshiaki Tanaka, for great contributions.
4. References[1] IEICE Technical Committee on Network Systems
web site, http://www.ieice.org/~ns/eng/[2] Zoom, http://zoom.us/[3] Y. Okazaki, et al., “Report on the 2019 NS English
Session Awards and Award Ceremony,” IEICE
Global NewsLetter, vol. 44, no. 1, pp. 4–5, March
2020.
25

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on the 1st Philippines-Japan Workshop on
Wireless, Radio and Antenna Technologies
Paul Jason Co
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute,
University of the Philippines
1. Introduction
The 1st Philippines-Japan Workshop on Wireless,Radio and Antenna Technologies was held at theMonet Ballroom, Novotel Manila Araneta City,
General Aguinaldo Avenue, Quezon City, Philippines
on December 4-5, 2019. This conference wassponsored and organized by the Technical Committee
on Antennas and Propagation of the Institute ofElectronics, Information and Communication Engineers(IEICE), the Department of Science and Technology Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOSTASTI) along with the Wireless Communications
Engineering Laboratory (WCEL) of University of thePhilippines Diliman - Electrical and Electronics
Engineering Institute (UP EEEI).
2. Brief History of PJWWRAT
Before the main event for Dec. 4-5, representatives
from Japan and Philippines formed the organizing
committee and organized an event called “PJWWRATmini” which was held at the Department of Science andTechnology- Advanced Science and Technology
Institute (DOST-ASTI), Quezon City, Philippines (Fig.
2) with over 80 participants. There were 24 paper
presentations – 12 from Japan and 12 from theFig. 1 PJWWRAT-mini Organizing Committee andPresenters.

Fig. 2 Technical Session during
PJWWRAT mini.
26

Philippines. The event served as a guide for theorganizers for PJWWRAT 2019.
Prof. Joel Joseph Marciano Jr. of the Electrical andElectronics Engineering Institute, University of thePhilippines, Advanced Science and Technology
Institute (DOST-ASTI) and Prof. Jiro Hirokawa ofTokyo Institute of Technology served as the General
Chairs while Prof. Lawrence Materum of De La Salle
University and Prof. Satoru Kurokawa of the National
Institute of Advanced Industrial Science andTechnology were delegated as Vice Co-Chairs.
PJWWRAT 2019 is the first joint technical workshop
between the Philippines and Japan for exchanging
information on the progress of research anddevelopment in antennas, propagation, RF/microwave
and wireless communication systems. The PJWWRAT
Committee is planning and looking forward to having
this workshop as a biennial event for the Philippines
and Japan.
3. Technical Sessions
The program for PJWWRAT 2019 consisted of 26
oral paper presentations and 15 poster presentations
with 130 participants (Fig. 8). The presentation topics
include but not limited to:• Antenna Technology for 5G• Massive MIMO
• 5G Standards and Radio technologies• Radio Spectrum Monitoring orSpectrum management• 5G Radio propagation measurements and models• Array antenna systems for space technology
The first day of the program included messages from
Clarinda Reyes of the Emerging Technology
Development Division under the Philippine Council for
Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Researchand Development (DOST-PCIEERD), Mr. Tomoyuki
Honda, the Second Secretary of the Japan Information
and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan in thePhilippines and Prof. Joel Joseph S. Marciano, Jr., oneof the PJWWRAT General Chairs.
The technical sessions for the first day included 14
paper presentations (Fig. 3) and the exhibit of theposters (Fig. 4). After each oral presentation, audience
queries were entertained for an allotted period. The
presenters consisted of professors, researchers andstudents from different universities and institutions
from the partnering countries.

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Poster presentations ensued after the paper
presentations. There were 8 posters from Japan and 6
from the Philippines (Fig. 7).

Fig. 3 Participants of PJWWRAT 2019 during thePaper Presentations.

Fig. 7 PJWWRAT Day 2 Poster Exhibition.

Fig. 4 PJWWRAT Day 1 Poster Exhibition.
The second day of the program included 12 oral
paper presentations, 15 poster presentations and 2
keynote speeches from Hiroyuki Tsuji, Ph.D.
Research Manager of the National Institute ofInformation and Communications Technology (NICT)
with the presentation entitled “Activities of R&D inJapan for Future High Throughput Satellite
Communications” (Fig. 5) and Gregory L. Tangonan,
Ph.D, the Research Director of Ateneo Innovation
Center with the presentation entitled “International
Collaboration for the New V-Hub Standard for V-X”
(Fig. 6).

Fig. 5 During the Keynote Speech of
Hiroyuki Tsuji, Ph.D.

Fig. 6 During the Keynote Speech of
Gregory L. Tangonan, Ph.D.

4. Awards
The technical program committee chairs awarded 2
participants (1-Philippines, 1-Japan) for best paper
presentations and 3 participants (2-Philippines, 1Japan) for best poster presentations.
Paper presentation awardees:“Coarse Sampling for Near Field Co-Planar Phaseless Measurement” by Kusunose Kyosuke and Arai
Hiroyuki (Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Graduate School of Engineering, Yokohama National
University, Yokohama, Japan)“TV White Space Availability in the Western Philippine
Nautical Highway” by Rizza T. Loquias (Electrical andElectronics Engineering Institute, UP Diliman) Calvin
Artemies G. Hilario, Mar Francis D De Guzman, Joel
Joseph S. Marciano, Jr. (Electrical and Electronics
Engineering Institute, UP Diliman & Department of
Science and Technology - Advanced Science andTechnology Institute)
Poster presentation awardees:“Development of an Off-Grid Decentralized Network
using Low Power, Long Range Radios for Emergency
Communications” by Khazmir Camille Valerie G.
Macaraeg (Wireless Communications Engineering
Laboratory, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman,
Quezon City, Philippines) Calvin Artemies G. HilarioCharleston Dale Ambatali (Wireless Communications
Engineering Laboratory, Electrical and Electronics
Engineering Institute, University of the Philippines,
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines and Department of
Science and Technology - Advanced Science andTechnology Institute)“UAV-Mounted SAR Image Correction with Gyroscope
Data and MAP Estimation” by Ryan Joshua A.
Maliwat (Wireless Communication Engineering
Laboratory, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
27

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Institute, University of the Philippines, Diliman,
Quezon City).
“Estimation on Human Body Blockage Characteristics
at 5G Frequency bands for Epidemiologic Research on
RF Exposure and Adolescent Health” by Ryunosuke
Ozaki and Takashi Hikage (Graduate School ofInformation Science and Technology, Hokkaido
University, Japan) Manabu Omiya and Masahiko
Mizuta (Information Initiative Center, Hokkaido
University, Japan) Keiko Yamazaki, Atsuko Araki,
Yuri Teraoka and Reiko Kishi (Center for
Environmental and Health Sciences, Hokkaido
University, Japan)
5. Banquet and Social Program
After the awarding ceremony, a group photo sessioncommenced (Fig. 8) and a banquet followed right after.
The participants were given a taste of the Filipino
culture (Fig. 9) where they were served different andunique Filipino delicacies while being entertained withsome Filipino songs. The banquet was an opportunity
for the students, researchers and professors to interact
with each other in the spirit of knowledge and network
promulgation.

Fig. 10 Visit in DOST-ASTI.
They also had a chance to meet with the Universityof the Philippines President, Danilo L. Concepcion (Fig.
11). Japanese visitors were toured around the
University Laboratory for Small Satellite and SpaceEngineering Systems (ULyS³ES) located at theElectrical and Electronics Engineering Institute of UP
Diliman. ULyS³ES houses a Full Anechoic Chamber(Fig. 12) and a research laboratory.

Fig. 8 Group Photo before Banquet.
Fig. 11 Meeting with University of the Philippines
President.

Fig. 9 Banquet and Social Program.
6. Facility Tour and Technical Discussion
On the third day after the technical discussions, theorganizing committee and some of the Japanese
students had a chance to visit some of the facilities
housed in the Department of Science and TechnologyAdvanced Science and Technology Institute (DOSTASTI) (Fig. 10) and University of the Philippines
Diliman (Fig. 11).

28

Fig. 12 Full Anechoic Chamber.
7. Reference
https://asti.dost.gov.ph/events/pjwwrat-2019-manila/

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on the 7th International Conference
on Smart Grid (icSmartGrid2019)
Nobumasa Matsui and Fujio Kurokawa
Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science

1. Introduction
The 7th International Conference on Smart Grid
(icSmartGrid) 2019 was held on 9-11 December, 2019
at Rdyges Newcastle Hotel, Newcastle/Australia.
The purpose of icSmartGrid2019 is to bring together
researchers, engineers, manufacturers, practitioners andcustomers from all over the world to share and discuss
advances and developments in Smart Grids research
and applications. After the successes of the previous
editions of Smart Grid Workshops at Antalya in 2013
and 2014, and in Feb. and Apr. 2015 with technical cosponsorship of IEEE Industrial Electronics Society(IES) at Istanbul. Then they organized 6th
icSmartGrid2018 at Nagasaki with IEEE-IES andIndustry Applications Society (IAS).
icSmartGrid2019 is organized the International
Journal of Renewable Energy Research (IJRER) andInternational Journal of Smart Grid (ijSmartGrid). The
General Chair of icSmartGrid2019 is Prof. Yousef
IBRAHIM, Co-Chairs are Prof. Ilhami COLAK and
Prof. Fujio Kurokawa. The diamond sponsor is Toshiba
Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corporation(TMEIC), Lanzhou Jiaotong University is bronze
sponsor. IEEE-IAS and IEEE-IES have joined astechnical co-sponsors, the Institute of ElectricalEngineers of Japan (IEEJ) and the Institute ofElectronics, Information and Communication Engineers(IEICE) support the conference in cooperation. It isalso supported by Federation University and Newcastle
University, Australia, Nagasaki Institute of Applied
Science and Nagasaki University, Japan, moreover,Gazi University and Nisantasi University, Turkey.
The city of Newcastle is located north of Sydney, andpassengers take about 3 hours here by train of Intercity
from Sydney. Another transportation is domestic flights.
Newcastle was a port city pioneered to transport coal.
The first official shipment of coal begun from
Newcastle to Sydney in 1801. In 1997, the Port
entrance is 17 meters deep and able to accommodate
such large ships regularly, making coal export a major
contributor to the wealth of the region and nation.
In today's Newcastle downtown area, trams are themain means of transportation for citizens, as shown in
Fig. 1. The electric power of the tram is charged atsome place such as the Intercity Station, and theelectric power from the battery is used during traveling.
Therefore, there is no overhead power line on the tramline, and attention is paid to the cityscape.

2. Opening Ceremony and Keynote Speeches
On Monday morning, the first day of the conference,
the opening ceremony was held by General Chair, Prof.
Yousef Ibrahim, General co-Chairs, Prof. Ilhami Colakand Prof. Fujio Kurokawa, as shown in Fig. 2.
After the opening ceremony, Prof. Terrence Summers,
Newcastle University as first keynote speaker in Fig. 3
has presented about a scenario whereby the bulk of asystem’s energy is generated locally by small distributed
generators and he discussed various scenarios as to
how the problem of controlling.
In secondary keynote speech, Dr. Shinzo Tamai(TMEIC) has presented the trend of UPS circuits are
introduced as an application of several hundreds ofkVA two-level and three-level converters, as shown in
Fig. 4. On the first evening, a welcome reception washeld at the venue with cocktails and snacks in Fig. 5.

Fig. 1 City of Newcastle.

Fig. 2 Opening ceremony.
29

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IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Fig. 3 1st Keynote speech, Prof. Terrence Summers.
On Wednesday morning, the second day of theconference, there were two keynote speech. At first,
Prof. Brayima Dakyo, University of Havre, France has
focused on some key theoretical and practicaldevelopments that concern energy flux better transfer
strategies, multi objective power converters design andreal time control of storage units.
Next, Prof. Xinghuo Yu, Royal Melbourne Instituteof Technology has presented some recent developments
in both Artificial Intelligence and Smart Grid. And hediscussed about potential issues associated withinterplay and integration between them to bring out thebest of both fields.
3. Technical Program
There were 39 submissions papers are given an
alternative energy, sustainable and clean energy issues,
new trends and technologies and so on for smart grid.
27 presentations papers from 14 countries were
accepted for oral presentation by careful peer review
process, as shown in Fig. 6.
The technical program was scheduled throughMonday afternoon and Wednesday morning. The
conference program consisted of 6 technical sessions in
Fig. 7. Each session was kept the schedule, andattendances discussed about the interesting subjects,
advances and developments in smart grid technologies
and their applications. One best paper [1] and two
excellent papers are selected as award on theconference.
4. Conclusions
icSmartGrid2019 was held at Newcastle/Australia on
9-11 December 2019 to continue promoting anddisseminating the knowledge concerning several topics
and technologies related to smart energy systems andsources.
icSmartGrid2020 will be held in Paris, France on 1719 June 2020. <https://www.icsmartgrid.org>
5. Reference[1] C. Karunanayake, J. Ravishankar and Z. Y. Dong,“A Novel Torsional Vibration Mitigation Strategy
for DFIG Based Wind Turbines,” in Proc.
icSmartGrid2019, pp. 27-32, Dec. 2019.
30

Fig. 4 2nd Keynote speech, Dr. Shinzo Tamai.

Fig. 5 Welcome reception at venue.

Fig. 6 Presentation papers.

Fig. 7 Technical Program.

[IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on Japan–Africa Conference on Electronics,
Communications, and Computations 2019
(JAC-ECC2019)
Osamu Muta, Kyushu University

1. Introduction
The Japan–Africa Conference on Electronics,
Communications, and Computations 2019 (JACECC2019) was held during December 15–16, 2019 at
Egypt–Japan University of Science and Technology (EJUST), Alexandria, Egypt. The conference wasorganized through international collaboration between
Kyushu University in Japan and E-JUST in Egypt [1],and also technically co-sponsored by the TechnicalCommittee of Communication Systems in IEICE
Communications Society [2] (IEICE-CS), and IEEE
Egypt Section [3].
As an international conference addressing the fields
of electronics, communications, and computerengineering, JAC-ECC stands out among otherconferences in the engineering field, offering its uniquevalue. The conference features formulation of academic
and human network among international researchers
from academia and industry in Japan, the Middle East,and Sub-Saharan Africa.
This report briefly provides historical backgroundand an overview of JAC-ECC2019 while introducing
its special invited sessions related to information
communications technologies (ICT) in Japan, coorganized by IEICE-CS and JAC-ECC committee.
2. JAC-ECC History and Overview
In 2012, Kyushu University and E-JUST coorganized an international conference called theinternational Japan–Egypt Conference on Electronics,
Communications and Computers (JEC-ECC). Since
then, it has been held four times: once in Japan(Fukuoka in 2015) and the rest in Egypt (2012, 2013,
and 2016). Most articles presented at JEC-ECC havebeen published in the IEEE Xplore online library of theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
As an advanced edition of JEC-ECC, a renewedinternational conference, JAC-ECC was organized in2017. Unlike the previous four conferences, JAC-ECC(with “A” for Africa in place of “E” for Egypt) was
organized as a platform for extending collaboration
among international researchers in Japan and MiddleEastern/African countries. The third edition of JACECC (i.e., the Seventh Edition Conference in total) was
held at E-JUST campus in 2019 as shown in Fig.1. For
this conference, the Technical Committee of Radio
Communication Systems and that of Communication
Systems in the IEICE Communications Society also
cooperated.

Fig. 1 JAC-ECC2019 Conference venue.
JAC-ECC2019 includes eight main technical tracks:- Artificial Intelligence- Big Data Analytics and Cloud Computing- Communications- Circuits and Systems- Signal, Image, and Video Processing- Microwave and Antennas- The Internet of Things (IoT)- Biomedical Engineering and Applications
The JAC-ECC technical program committee (TPC)
peer-reviewed all submitted articles. Contributing to
the peer-review process, the TPC was supported byexperts in the fields of electronics, communications,and computers from Australia, Canada, China, Egypt,
Japan, India, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, South
Africa, South Korea, Sweden and the United States.
They collectively conducted a total of 272 reviews.
In JAC-ECC2019, the technical program committee
received 85 submissions. Among the submissions, 54
papers were accepted with a 63% acceptance ratio in
the final program. The accepted papers were presented
in oral sessions similarly to other international
conferences in the same research field.

Fig. 2 (a) Poster session(b) Oral session.

31

[IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Fig. 3 Organizing committee members and participants.
In the technical program of JAC-ECC, we had 11
regular technical sessions. In addition, we organized
the IEICE invited session for three invited speakers.
Furthermore, we had keynote sessions for four invited
speakers, all of whom were leading researchers inengineering fields. In the conference, poster
presentation was held on the first day of the conferencein parallel with technical regular sessions. Figures 2(a)and 2(b) respectively show oral presentations andposter presentations in technical sessions of theconference. Figure 3 depicts our organizing committee
members, IEICE invited presenters, and conference
participants.
3. IEICE Special Invited Session
In JAC-ECC2019, we organized a special invited
session on ICT technologies in Japan in cooperation
with Technical Committee of Communication Systems
and that of Radio Communication Systems in IEICE
Communications Society. To this session, we invited
three outstanding Japanese researchers who aremembers of IEICE and experts in ICT. Impressive
invited talks presented topics such as internet-of-things(IoT) technologies, research activities on communication quality, and radio transceiver antenna systems[4–6] as well as a brief introduction of IEICE activities.
Each presentation had 35 min for a presentation and 5
min for questions. Invited presenters for the special
session were the following (Fig. 4).
- Prof. Tetsuya Yokotani (Kanazawa Inst. of Tech.)- Dr. Hideyuki Shimonishi (NEC Corporation)- Prof. Makoto Taromaru (Fukuoka University)
During the conference, we had an IEICE booth foradvertising our activities, as depicted in Fig. 5. In thisbooth, we provided some brochures as handouts forparticipants, such as “IEICE Oversea Membership
Application Form” and “Introduction to IEICE”.
We received many queries from participants related
to IEICE activities and ways to join IEICE. We also
discussed possible future activities with JAC-ECC
committee members for cooperation with IEICE
Communications Society.

32(a)Prof. Yokotani (b)Dr. Shimonishi (c)Prof. Taromaru
Fig. 4 Presenters in IEICE special invited session.

Fig. 5 IEICE booth and participants.
4. Conclusion
JAC-ECC2019 was the seventh edition of theconference including the past four editions of JECECC organized by international collaboration of
Kyushu University and E-JUST in cooperation withIEICE Communications Society. Details and venues of
the next edition of the conference, JAC-ECC, have notbeen determined yet. For additional information, please
visit our conference site [1]. We welcome yoursubmission to the conference. Finally, we would like toexpress our gratitude to all speakers, participants, andcommittee members for their contributions to theconference.
5. References[1] JAC-ECC2019 website:
https://sites.google.com/a/ejust.kyushu-u.ac.jp/jacecc-2019/[2] IEICE Communications Society website:
http://www.ieice.org/cs/[3] IEEE Egypt Section website:
http://www.ieee.org.eg/[4] T.Yokotani, “A proposal of IoT DEP as a platform
for efficient IoT service deployment on wide area
networks,” Invited presentation at JAC-ECC2019,
Dec. 2019.
[5] H. Shimonishi, “Review of recent research
activities on communication quality,” Invited
presentation at JAC-ECC2019, Dec. 2019.
[6] M. Taromaru, “Utility and Problem by Using
Switching in Radio TRX and Antenna Systems,”
Invited presentation at JAC-ECC2019, Dec. 2019.

[IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on the 34th International Conference on
Information Networking (ICOIN) 2020
*Kihyung Kim, **Sangheon Pack

*General Co-Chair of ICOIN 2020, **TPC Chair of ICOIN 2020

1. Introduction
The 34th International Conference on Information
Networking (ICOIN) 2020 was held at Barcelona, Span,from January 7 to 10, 2020. This conference wasorganized by Korea Institute of Information Scientists
and Engineers (KIISE), and technically cosponsored by
the IEEE Computer Society and IEICE Communication
Society.
2. Organization
The organizing committee of ICOIN 2020 wasformed with the General Co-Chairs, Choong Seon
Hong (Kyung Hee University, Korea), Ki-Hyung Kim(Ajou University, Korea), Hiroyuki Ohsaki (Kwansei
Gakuin University, Japan), and Nen-Fu (Fred) Huang(National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan). The
technical program was organized by Technical
Program Committee Co-Chairs, Sangheon Pack (Korea
University, Korea), Takeo Fujii (The University ofElectro-Communications, Japan), Yulei Wu (Universityof Exeter, UK). More than 300 technical programcommittee (TPC) members were involved in the review
process.
3. Conference Program
In ICOIN 2020, 167 papers were submitted from 37
countries. After the reviews and discussions, 65 papers
have been accepted for oral presentations and 58 papers
for poster ones. In addition, four workshops on
intelligent computing, B5G, AI for healthcare,
AI/mobility collected 30 oral papers and 9 poster
papers. The 65 oral papers are organized into 14
technical sessions, which will be held in 2 parallel
tracks. The 67 poster papers (including 9 workshop
posters) are organized into 2 poster sessions. The
program covers a variety of topics on recent topics incomputer communication and networking including
IoT, 5G, network security, blockchain, SDN, cloud,and AI for networking.
ICOIN 2020 also invited world-class leading
researchers for keynote speeches: Lajos Hanzo(University of Southampton, UK), Song Chong(KAIST, Korea), Mérouane Debbah (Huawei France
Research Center, France), and Akihiro Nakao(University of Tokyo, Japan). They gave wonderfultalks on quantum computing, AI/machine learning, 5G,
and SDN. Two exciting tutorials on machine learning
and SDN were provided by Walid Saad (Virginia Tech.,USA) and Kate Ching-Ju Lin (National Chiao Tung
University, Taiwan).

The three papers were selected as the best paper
awards and the award ceremony was held
simultaneously during the banquet session.
 Best Paper Awards- “Cross-domain Network Traffic Classification
Using Unsupervised Domain Adaptation,”
Dongpu Li, Qifeng Yuan (University of Science andTechnology of China, China), Tan Li (City
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong), Shuangwu
Chen, and Jian Yang (University of Science andTechnology of China, China)- “Designing Content Placement of CDN for
Improving Aggregation Effect of ICN FIBs
Adaptation,” Yu Sasaki, Noriaki Kamiyama(Fukuoka University, Japan), and Yusheng Ji(National Institute of Informatics, Japan)- “Cooperative Content Downloading Protocol
Based on the Mobility Information of Vehicles inIntermittently Connected Vehicular Networks,”
Jaejeong Bang, Youngju Nam, Hyunseok Choi
(ChungbukNational
University,
Korea),
Seungmin Oh (Kongju National University,
Korea), and Euisin Lee (Chungbuk National
University, Korea)

Fig. 1 Best Paper Award.
4. Conclusion
We believe that ICOIN 2020 was a truly successful
conference in the area of communication andnetworking. On behalf of the organizing committee, wewould like to thank our sponsors, IEEE Computer
Society, and IEICE-CS for their kind support to thissuccessful event. In addition, it is our pleasure toannounce that ICOIN 2021 will be held in January
2021. (for more details, please visit http://icoin.org/.)

33

[IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Report on the 2nd International Conference on
Artificial Intelligence in Information andCommunication (ICAIIC) 2020
*Yeong Min Jang, *Takeo Fujii, *Dong Seog Han, **Seokjoo Shin

*Organizing Chairs of ICAIIC 2020, **TPC Chair of ICAIIC 2020

1. Introduction
The 2nd International Conference on Artificial
Intelligence in Information and Communication(ICAIIC) 2020 was held in Fukuoka, Japan, fromFebruary 19 to 21, 2020. This conference was supported
by Korean Institute of Communications and Information
Sciences (KICS) and technically cosponsored by theIEEE
Communication
Societyand
IEICE
Communication Society.
2. Organization
The organizing committee of ICAIIC 2020 wasformed with the Pascal Lorenz (Univ. of Haute Alsace,France), Ilyoung Chong (HUFS, Korea), Rami Langar(UPEM, France), Hsi-Pin Ma (National Tsing Hua Univ.,
Taiwan), Joel Rodrigues (Inatel, Brazil), Jonghyun Park(ETRI, Korea), Yeong Min Jang (Kookmin Univ.,
Korea), Takeo Fujii (Univ. of Electro-Comms, Japan),and Dong Seog Han (Kyungpook National Univ., Korea).
The technical program was organized by Technical
Program Committee Chairs, Seokjoo Shin (Chosun
Univ., Korea), Benaoumeur Senouci (ECE Paris,
France), and Takaya Yamazato (Nagoya University,
Japan). Around 200 technical program committee (TPC)
members were involved in the review process.
3. Conference Program
The conference consists of one opening and plenary
session, and 22 technical sessions (including 4 poster
sessions). The opening session was started with a brief
introduction by Prof. Yeong Min Jang (Organizing
Chair), following with one welcome address by Prof.
Takeo Fujii (Univ. of Electro-Comms, Japan).
After that, one keynote speech from Dong Seog Han(Kyungpook National Univ., Korea) was delivered. In
the technical sessions, we had 154 presentations(selected from 344 submissions) with approximately 210
participants from 28 countries of the world, such as
Korea, Japan, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, USA,and so on. With regard to these technical sessions, there
were 22 sessions including 4 poster sessions and theprogram covers a variety of topics on artificial
intelligence, deep learning and their applications towireless and wired communication and networking
technologies such as cognitive radios, wireless sensor
networks, Internet of Things (IoT), broadband wireless34

Fig. 1 After Opening Session.
communications, future network issues, mobile
multimedia networking, Big data, Cloud computing,
Neuroscience and eHealth, and other important
technologies.
The Welcome Reception and Banquet were held at
Takakura Hotel Fukuoka. At the banquet, Prof. Yeong
Min Jang (Kookmin Univ., Korea) delivered a banquet
speech. The best and excellent paper award ceremony
was held simultaneously during the banquet session.
• Best Paper Award- “Q-Transfer: A Novel Framework for Efficient
Deep Transfer Learning in Networking,” Trung
V. Phan (Technische Universitat Chemnitz,
Germany), Shabnam Sultana (Technical
University of Chemnitz, Germany), Tri Gia
Nguyen (Duy Tan University, Vietnam), andThomas Bauschert (Chemnitz University ofTechnology, Germany)• Excellent Paper Awards- “Neural architecture search under black-box
objectives with deep reinforcement learningand increasingly-sparse rewards,” Mitchel
Alioscha-Perez (Vrije Universiteit Brussel,
Belgium), Abel D´ıaz Berenguer (Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, Belgium), Ercheng Pei(Northwestern
Polytechnical
University,
China), Meshia C´edric Oveneke (Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, Belgium), and Hichem
Sahli (Interuniv. MicroElectronics Centre,
Belgium)- “A Deep Autoencoder Approach to Received
Signal Strength-Based Localization with

[IEICE-CS Related Conference Reports]-

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Unknown Channel Parameters,” Chaehun Im,
Sunghoon Jung, and Chungyoung Lee (Yonsei
University, Korea)“Deep Learning Based CoMP Transmission
Method Using Vehicle Position Information
for Taxi Radio Systems,” Kazuki Kojima,
Yukiko Shimbo, Hirofumi Suganuma, andFumiaki Maehara (Waseda University, Japan)

Fig. 2 After Banquet Session.
4. Conclusion
We believe that ICAIIC 2020 was a truly successful
conference in the area of artificial intelligence and deeplearning and their applications to networking. On behalfof the organizing committee, we would like to thank oursponsors, KICS, IEEE Communications Society, and
IEICE-CS for their kind support to this successful event.
We are happy to announce the next ICAIIC(ICAIIC2021) will be held in Roma, Italy. We are going
to inform you about the detail of the next ICAIIC
through the web site http://icaiic.org/. We are looking
forward to seeing you in Roma.

35

[IEICE-CS Information]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

IEICE-CS Related Conferences Calendar
Date

Conference Name

LocationNote

26 Oct. 30 Oct. 2020

2020 International Symposium on Antennas andPropagation (ISAP2020)

Osaka, Japan

Submission due:
15 June 2020
(Extend)

21 Oct. 23 Oct. 2020

International Conference on Information
Communication Technology Conference 2020
(ICTC 2020)

Jeju Island,
Korea

Submission due:
1 June 2020

18 Oct. 21 Oct. 2020

The 23rd International Symposium on WirelessSubmission deadline
Okayama, Japan
ClosedPersonal Multimedia Communications (WPMC2020)

Postponed to2021

The 26th Asia-Pacific Conference on Communications Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia(APCC2020)

27 Sep. 30 Sep. 2020

International Conference on Renewable Energy
Research and Applications 2020 (ICRERA 2020)

Glasgow, UK

Submission due:
15 July 2020

22 Sep. 24 Sep. 2020

International Telecom Congress ITC 32 (ITC32)

Osaka, Japan

Submission deadline
Closed-17th IEEE Asia Pacific Wireless Communications
Symposium 2020 (APWCS2020)

Osaka, Japan

Cancelled

13 Jul. 15 Jul. 2020

2020 IEEE Photonics Society Summer Topicals Cabo San Lucas,
MexicoMeeting Series (IEEE Summer Topicals 2020)

4 Oct. 8 Oct. 2020
(Postponed)

2020
Opto-Electronics
Conference (OECC2020)

Postponed to2021

The 12th International Conference on Ubiquitous andPorto, Portugal
Future Networks (ICUFN2020)

TBD

22 Jun. 26 Jun. 2020

The 19th International Workshop on Assurance inCalgary, Canada
Distributed Systems and Networks (ADSN2020)

To be held soon

7 Jun. 11 Jun. 2020

IEEE ICC Workshop on Information-Centric
Networking Solutions for Real-world Applications
Dublin, Ireland(ICN-SRA)

To be held soon

25 May 2020

Technology Trials and Proof-of-Concept Activities for
5G Evolution & Beyond 5G 2020 (TPoC5GE 2020)

Antwerp,
Belgium

Done

20 May 22 May 2020

The 14th International Symposium on Medical
Information and Communication Technology(ISMICT 2020)

Nara, JapanDone

19 Feb. 21 Feb. 2020

2020 International ConferenceIntelligence in Information and(ICAIIC 2020)

7 Jan. 10 Jan. 2020

The 34th International Conference on Information
Networking (ICOIN 2020)

Barcelona,
Spain

Reportedon this issue

15 Dec. 16 Dec. 2019

International Japan-Africa Conference on Electronics,
Communications and Computations 2019
(JAC-ECC2019)

Alexandria,
Egypt

Reportedon this issue

36

and

and

Communications

Taipei, Taiwan

on Artificial
Communication Fukuoka, JapanTBD

To be held soon
Submission deadline
ClosedReportedon this issue

[IEICE-CS Information]Date
9 Dec. 11 Dec. 2019

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Conference Name
7th International Conference on Smart Grid
(icSmartGrid 2019)

Location

Note

Newcastle,
Australia

Reportedon this issue

Please confirm with the following IEICE-CS web site for the latest information.
http://www.ieice.org/cs/conf/calendar.html

37

ICRERA 2020
9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RENEWABLE ENERGYRESEARCH AND APPLICATIONS
September 27-30, 2020, Glasgow/UK
Call for Papers
Dear Colleague,
The purpose of the International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA) 2020 is to bring together
researchers, engineers, manufacturers, practitioners and customers from all over the world to share and discuss advances anddevelopments in renewable energy research and applications.
After the success of the first eighth editions of ICRERA in Nagasaki (2012), Madrid (2013), Milwaukee (2014), Palermo (2015),
Birmingham (2016), San Diego (2017), Paris (2018), and Brasov (2019), the nineth edition will be in Glasgow, UK, and will continue
focusing on several key topics and technologies related to renewable (green) energy systems and sources.
It is our happiness to share with you that 84 selected papers out of 178 papers at ICRERA2019 have been proposed for possible
publications in IEEE Transactions on Industrial Applications (15 papers), International Journal of Renewable Energy Research(21 Papers), International Journal of Smart Grid (20) and International Journal of Engineering Science and Applications (28).
We hope to select similar rate of papers for the ICRERA 2020.
Up to 2019, all papers presented ICRERA have been cited in IEEE Xplore, SCOPUS and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics).
According to WEB of Science (Clarivate Analytics);
h-index = 14
Average citation per item = 1.97
Impact Factor = 4.16
ICRERA aims to present important results to the international renewable energy community in the form of research, development,
applications, design, and technology. It is therefore intended to assist researchers, scientists, manufacturers, companies, communities,
agencies, associations and societies to keep abreast on new developments in their specialties and to unite in finding alternative energy
solutions to current issues such as the greenhouse effect, sustainable and clean energy issues.
Topics within the scope of the conference include the following areas, but not limited to:x

Renewable (Green) Energy Systems and Sources(RESSs) as Wind Power, Hydropower, Solar
Energy, Biomass, Biofuel, Geothermal Energy,xWave Energy, Tidal energy, Hydrogen & Fuel
Cells, Energy Storage
New Trends and Technologies for RESSs

x
x

Policies and Strategies for RESSs
x Energy Savings for Power Electronics, VehicularTechnology, Electric Machinery and Control, etc.
Energy Transformation from Renewable Energy
System (RES) to Gridx New Approaches in Lightingsx Novel Energy Conversion Studies for RESs
x Public Awareness and Education for Renewable
Energy and Systems
x Power Devices and Driving Circuits for RESs
x Reliability and Maintenance in RESSs
x Control Techniques for RESs
x Smart grids and RESSs
x Grid Interactive Systems Used in Hybrid RESs
x Safety and Security of RESSsx Performance Analysis of RESs
x Renewable Energy Systems in Smart Cities
x Hybrid RESSs
x Future Challenges and Directions for RESSs
x Decision Support Systems for RESSs
x IoT for RESSs
x Renewable Energy Research and Applications for
Industries
x Energy Management, VPP(Virtual Power Plant)
and ERAB (Energy Resource Aggregation
x RESSs for Electrical Vehicles and Components
Businesses) for RESSsx Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
x Model based Design and Digital Twin for RESSs
Studies for RESs and Applications
x Computational Methods for RESSsLong Digest Submission: IEEE format, around 3 - 5 pages, single column, including figures and references.
Selected papers will be published in following journals cited in Web of Science with higher impact factors.
xxxxIEEE Transactions on Industrial Applications
International Journal of Renewable Energy ResearchInternational Journal of Smart Grid
International Journal of Engineering Science and Applications

ICRERA 2020 Author Deadlines:
3 to 5 Pages Long Digest Submission Deadline:
Notification of acceptance:
Final submissions due:
Conference:

July 15, 2020
August 1, 2020
September 1, 2020
September 27-30, 2020

Invitation:
On behalf of organizing committee, we would like to invite you to submit articles to ICRERA 2020. Proposals for special sessions,workshops, tutorials, challenges, competitions, etc. are most welcome.
Awards:Awards will be provided to some Outstanding Papers and some Student Excellent Presentations selected and conferred by the
ICRERA 2020 Program Committee. In order to qualify for the award, the paper must be presented at the conference.
Best regards,
Dr. Khaled Ahmed
General Chair, ICRERA
Strathclyde University, Glasgow,
UK
www.icrera.org ; icrera@gmail.com

Prof. ILHAMI COLAK
General Co-Chair, ICRERA
Nisantasi University, Turkey

Prof. FUJIO KUROKAWA
General Co-Chair, ICRERA
Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science,Japan

[IEICE-CS Information]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

Special Section Calendar of IEICE Transactions on Communications
Issue

Special Section

NoteDec. 2021

Recent Progress in Networking Science and Practice in Conjunction
with Main Topics of ITC32

Submission due:
15 January 2021

Nov. 2021

No special section this issue

Oct. 2021

No special section this issue

Sep. 2021

No special section this issue

Aug. 2021

No special section this issue

Jul. 2021

Future Directions of Research and Development on Communication
Quality

Submission due:
28 August 2020

Jun. 2021

ICT for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare Applications in Conjunction
with Main Topics of ISMICT 2020

Submission due:
15 July 2020

May 2021

No special section this issue

Apr. 2021

No special section this issue

Mar. 2021

Network Virtualization/Softwarization andtowards Beyond-5G Innovative IoT Services

Feb. 2021

No special section this issueJan. 2021

No special section this issue

Dec. 2020

IoT Sensor Networks and Mobile Intelligence

To be issued

Nov. 2020

Opto-electronics and Communications for Future Optical Network

To be issued

Oct. 2020

New Era of Satellite Communication / Broadcasting / Application
Technologies

To be issued

Sep. 2020

Electromagnetic Compatibility in Conjunction with EMC Sapporo and
APEMC 2019

To be issued

Aug. 2020

No special section this issue

Jul. 2020

No special section this issue

Jun. 2020

Information and Communication Technology for IoT/CPS in Medicine
and Healthcare

May 2020

No special section this issue

Apr. 2020

Network Resource Control and Management Technologies for
Sustainable Social Information Infrastructure

Artificial

Intelligence

Please confirm with the following IEICE web site for the latest CALL FOR PAPERS
http://www.ieice.org/event/ronbun-e.php?society=cs

40

To be issued

Vol. E103-B, No. 6

Vol. E103-B, No. 4

Call for Papers 㻌㻌42B------- Special Section on Information and Communication Technology
for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare Applications in Conjunction withMain Topics of ISMICT 2020 -------The IEICE Transactions on Communications announces that it will publish a special section entitled " ICT for Medical, Healthcare andWelfare Applications in Conjunction with Main Topics of ISMICT 2020" in June 2021.
With the evolution of technologies and platforms such as sensing, mobile computing, and cloud servers, the Internet of Things (IoT) is
recognized as a very important technology worldwide. In addition, the commercial service of the 5th generation mobile communication
system (5G) is scheduled to start in Japan in 2020. The medical, healthcare and welfare fields are receiving great attention as a target forthese applications. There is great expectation for innovation of medical, health and welfare care services such as telemedicine ortelesurgery using 5G, and health monitoring using biomedical sensors equipped with wireless communication functions. To promptly
bring those technologies to practical use, it is desirable to develop basic research such as biosensors, AI/data analysis, communication
systems, security, infrastructure and so on as soon as possible. In response to those circumstances, the Technical Committee on
Healthcare and Medical ICT (MICT) will hold the 14th International Symposium on Medical Information and Communication
Technology (ISMICT 2020) in Nara in May 2020. For the 100-year life ISMICT 2020 aims to establish a forum to present new
researches and development results, exchange ideas, discuss practices, and share experiences, among technology and medical sides.
The special section is planned to publish papers on the related fields of ISMICT 2020 toward realization of innovative medical,
healthcare, and welfare systems and services. However, anyone can submit a paper to the special section as well as the ISMICT 2020
contributor.

1. Scope
This special section aims at timely dissemination of research in these areas. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:- Medical, Healthcare and Welfare Communication System, Antenna and Propagation- AI and Big Data Analytics for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare- Biosensor application- Security and Personal Data Protection for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare- Electromagnetic Compatibility for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare- Medical, Healthcare and Welfare Service, Real Implementation, Experimentation Results- Regulatory Science for Medical Equipment

2. Submission Instructions
The standard number of pages is 8. The page charges are considerably higher for extra pages. Manuscripts should be prepared according
to the guideline in the "Information for Authors." The latest version is available at the web site,
https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/mokuji_cs.html. The term for revising the manuscript after acknowledgement of conditional acceptancefor this special section could be shorter than that for regular issues (60 days) because of the tight review schedule.
This special section will accept papers only by electronic submission. Submit a manuscript and electronic source files (LaTeX/Wordfiles, figures, authors’ photos and biographies) via the IEICE Web site https://review.ieice.org/regist/regist_baseinfo_e.aspx by July
15, 2020 (JST). Authors should choose the Information and Communication Technology for Medical, Healthcare and Welfare
Applications in Conjunction with Main Topics of ISMICT 2020 as a "Journal/Section" on the online screen. Do not choose [Regular
EB].
63B

Contact point:
Kento Takabayashi
Okayama Prefectural University
Tel: +81-866-94-2104, E-mail: eb-mictsi2020@mail.ieice.org

3. Special Section Editorial Committee

Guest Editor-in-Chief: Hirokazu Tanaka (Hiroshima City Univ.)
Guest Editor: Kento Takabayashi (Okayama Prefectural Univ.)
Guest Associate Editors: Toshinori Kagawa (NICT), Daisuke Anzai (Nagoya Inst. of Tech.), Tetsushi Ikegami (Meiji Univ.), Ichirou
Ida (Fujitsu Ltd.), Natsuki Nakayama (Nagoya Univ.), Dairoku Muramatsu (Tokyo Univ. of Science),
Soichi Watanabe (NICT)* Authors must agree to the "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" via electronic submission.
* Please note that if the submitted paper is accepted, all authors, including authors of invited papers, are requested to pay for the page
charges covering partial cost of publications. For detailed information, please visit https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#5* Upon accepted for publication, all authors, including authors of invited papers, should pay the page charges covering the partial costof publication around December 2020.
* At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. Invited papers are an exception.
We recommend that authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership. For membership applications, please visit
https://www.ieice.org/eng/join/member.html* The accepted papers will be published online soon after notification of acceptance on the web site of Transactions Online. For
detailed information, please visit
https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#841

Call for Papers--- Special Section on Future Directions of Research and Development on Communication Quality ---42B

The IEICE Transactions on Communications announces that it will publish a special section entitled "Special Section on Future Directions of Researchand Development on Communication Quality" in the July 2021 issue.
The technical committee on Communication Quality of IEICE Communication Society has reached 30th anniversary from the foundation as a type 2
workshop. This technical committee has focused on research and development on design, management, control, and evaluation of network technologies /systems / services, the quality of network applications, user-perceived quality, user needs, and their standardization process. Considering the recent
development of 5th generation cellular networks, virtualization technologies, Internet of Things technologies, and the progress of machine learning /artificial intelligence, communication quality has more and more diversified aspects in the future information networks. Therefore, the research anddevelopment activities on communication quality becomes significantly important.
This Special Section focuses on broad topic of research and development of communication quality, including optimization, control, and design
technologies, in order to explore their future directions of the research and development of communication quality. Note that paper submission is NOT
limited from researchers related to the technical committee on Communication Quality of IEICE Communication Society.

1. Scope

Areas of interest of this issue are closely related to Communication Quality. Research targets are placed but are not limited to the following list of areas:- Optimization, Control and Design of QoE / QoS
Game Theory, Data Mining, Personalization and Environmental Adaptation of Service, Network Control Considering QoE, Communication
Behavior Model and Behavior Modification, Resource Allocation Optimization for Social Infrastructure, QoE and Business Model, User
Engagement, Subjective / Objective Evaluation, QoE Estimation Model, Psychological Assessment, Biological Information Measurement,
Realistic / Ultra-Realistic, Usability, Crowdsourcing, Quality Visualization- Optimization, Control and Design of Network Services
IoT / M2M, Cloud /Fog Computing, DTN / Challenged Network, V2V / V2X, Voice / Audio / Visual / Haptic Media, Web Service,
Interactive System, Social Network Service, Network Performance Indicator (KPI), Quality Measure and Standardization, Traffic
Measurement / Planning / Control / Management,
Network Tomography, Cross-Layer Control, Green / Energy Saving
Technology, Fairness, Reliability / Safety- A Optimization, Control and Design of Wireless Communication Quality
Communication Quality of Mobile Communication, Communication Quality of Wireless LAN, Communication Quality of Sensor Network,
Communication / Access Method, Wireless Resource Allocation, Optimization Control, Signal Processing, Efficiency of Frequency / Energy
Usage

2. Submission Instructions

The standard number of pages is 8. The page charges are considerably higher for extra pages. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelinein the "Information for Authors". The latest version is available at the web site, https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/mokuji_cs.html (IEICE Transactions on
Communications). The term for revising the manuscript after acknowledgement of conditional acceptance for this special section could be shorter thanthat for regular issues (60 days) because of the tight review schedule.
H

This special section will accept papers only by electronic submission. Submit a manuscript and electronic source files (TeX/Word files, figures, authors’photos and biographies) via the IEICE Web site https://review.ieice.org/regist/regist_baseinfo_e.aspx by August 28, 2020 (Japan Time). Authors shouldchoose the Future Directions of Research and Development on Communication Quality as a "Journal/Section" on the online screen. Do not choose[Regular EB].
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Contact points:
Go Hasegawa
Tohoku University
Tel: +81 22 217 5415, Email： cq_ac-eb-cq30-kanji@mail.ieice.org

3. Special Section Editorial Committee

Guest Editor-in-Chief: Hideyuki Shimonishi (NEC)Guest Editors: Go Hasegawa (Tohoku Univ.), Ryo Yamamoto (UEC)
Guest Associate Editors: Yoshimasa Egashira (Toshiba), Megumi Kaneko (NII), Sumaru Niida (KDDI Lab.), Tatsuma Matsuki (Fujitsu Lab.),Osamu Muta (Kyushu Univ.), Masahiro Sasabe (NAIST), Shigeo Shioda (Chiba Univ.), Mutsumi Suganuma (Waseda Univ.), Kazuhisa Yamagishi (NTT),
Celimuge Wu (UEC)* Authors must agree to the "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" via electronic submission.
* Please note that if the submitted paper is accepted, all authors, including authors of invited papers, are requested to pay for the page charges covering
partial cost of publications. For detailed information, please visit https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#5* Upon accepted for publication, all authors, including authors of invited papers, should pay the page charges covering the partial cost of publication
around January 2021.
* At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. Invited papers are an exception. We recommend that
authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership. For membership applications, please visit
https://www.ieice.org/eng/member/OM-appli.html* The accepted papers for IEICE Transactions on Communications will be published online soon on the web site of Transactions Online after the paymentof page charges has been completed. For detailed information, please visit https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#842

Call for Papers
12------- Special Section on Recent Progress in Networking Science and Practice inConjunction with Main Topics of ITC32 ------42B

The IEICE Transactions on Communications announces that it will publish a special section entitled "Special Section on Recent Progress in
Networking Science and Practice in Conjunction with Main Topics of ITC32" in the December 2021 issue.
The international teletraffic congress (ITC) is the first international conference in networking science and practice. Since 1955, ITC hasestablished a multi-decade tradition as the primary forum for presenting and discussing the latest technical advances in teletraffic models, network
systems, and measurements. The ITC32 is the 32nd edition of this congress and will be held in Osaka during September 22-24, 2020. The
research on the network science and practice, especially on the modelling, design and performance of communication systems, networks andservices will be presented at ITC32.
This special section aims at timely dissemination of progressing research fields in networking science and practice. Submission of the paper
presented at ITC32 is strongly encouraged. However, presentation of the paper at ITC32 is not mandatory for its inclusion in this special section.

1. Scope

This special section aims at timely dissemination of progressing research fields in networking science and practice, especially researches on themodelling, design and performance of communication systems, networks and services. We encourage original contributions which bridge thegap between performance modeling and real-life operational aspects, including works which leverage measurement data to provide a better
understanding of the wired and wireless networks’ operation under realistic conditions.
The topics covered by this special section include the following topics.
Performance evaluation, control, and optimization based on network science and modelNetwork measurement and analysis
Modeling and design of network architectures
Modeling and design of wireless and cellular networks

2. Submission Instructions

The standard number of pages is 8. The page charges are considerably higher for extra pages. Manuscripts should be prepared according to theguideline in the "Information for Authors." The latest version is available at the web site, https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/mokuji_cs.html. The
term for revising the manuscript after acknowledgement of conditional acceptance for this special section could be shorter than that for regularissues (60 days) because of the tight review schedule.
This special section will accept papers only by electronic submission. Submit a manuscript and electronic source files (LaTeX/Word files, figures,
authors’ photos and biographies) via the IEICE Web site https://review.ieice.org/regist/regist_baseinfo_e.aspx by January 15, 2021 (JST).
Authors should choose the Recent Progress in Networking Science and Practice in Conjunction with Main Topics of ITC32 as a "Journal/Section"on the online screen. Do not choose [Regular EB].
Contact point:
Yuichi Ohsita
Osaka University
Tel: +81-6-6879-4542, E-mail: eb-itc2021@mail.ieice.org
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3. Special Section Editorial Committee

Guest Editor-in-Chief: Hideyuki Shimonishi (NEC)Guest Editors: Yuichi Ohsita (Osaka Univ.), Chisa Takano (Hiroshima City Univ.)
Guest Associate Editors: Masaki Aida (Tokyo Metropolitan University), Keisuke Ishibashi (ICU), Megumi Kaneko (NII),
Ryoichi Kawahara (Toyo University), Leibnitz Kenji (NICT), Zhisheng Niu (Tsinghua University),* Authors must agree to the "Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement" via electronic submission.
* Upon accepted for publication, all authors, including authors of invited papers, should pay for the page charges covering partial costof publications around June 2021. For detailed information, please visit https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#5* At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. Invited papers are an exception.
We recommend that authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership. For membership applications, please visit
https://www.ieice.org/eng/join/member.html* The accepted papers will be published online soon after notification of acceptance on the web site of Transactions Online. For detailed
information, please visit https://www.ieice.org/eng/shiori/page2_cs.html#843

Call for Papers------- Special Cluster in Conjunction with IEICE General Conference 2020 ------The IEICE Communications Express (ComEX) announces that it will publish a special cluster entitled “Special Cluster in
Conjunction with IEICE General Conference 2020” in December 2020. ComEX is an online open access letter journal withbinary peer review publishing system established in June 2012 by the IEICE covering the entire field of communications. The
editorial committee of ComEX thinks much of rapid yet careful peer review, and the average period from submission todecision is less than one month in 2019 and the acceptance rate is 45.5% in 2019. In order to keep the promptness of the review
process and provide high quality letters in a timely manner, the numbers of words and items (Figures, Tables, and Algorithms)
in the manuscript are limited up to 1500 and 3, respectively. We believe those requirements are met by typical papers presented
at IEICE General Conference or IEICE Society Conference meaning that papers of the conferences can be submitted to
ComEX after polishing sentences without significant addition and/or change of the items. Based on the above considerations,the editorial committee of ComEX has planned the special cluster to seamlessly publish letters in the entire field ofcommunications from, but not limited to, authors of IEICE General Conference 2020.
1. Scope
This special cluster aims at seamless publication of the work in the entire field of communications. Possible topics include, but
are not limited to, Fundamental Theories for Communications, Energy in Electronics Communications, Transmission Systems
and Transmission Equipment for Communications, Optical Fiber for Communications, Fiber-Optic Transmission forCommunications, Network System, Network, Internet, Network Management/Operation, Antennas and Propagation,
Electromagnetic
Compatibility(EMC),
Wireless
Communication
Technologies,
Terrestrial
Wireless
Communication/Broadcasting Technologies, Satellite Communications, Sensing, Navigation, Guidance and Control Systems,
Space Utilization Systems for Communications, and Multimedia Systems for Communications.
2. Schedule
Submission Open: April 1st, 2020 (JST)Submission Deadline: June 30th, 2020 (JST)We note that the submitted paper will proceed to review process right after the submission and the review result will be sent toauthors as soon as the decision is made. Authors can resubmit the rejected manuscript in the special cluster after careful
revisions as many times as possible during the submission period. All the accepted papers, which will have submitted by thesubmission deadline, will be published in this special cluster of the ComEX.
3. Submission Instructions
The maximum number of words is 1500; the maximum number of items (Figures, Tables, and Algorithms) is 3. Manuscripts
should be prepared according to the guideline in the “Information for Authors.” The latest version is available at the web site,
http://www.comex.ieice.org/data/for_authors.html. In particular, please refer to the paragraph on novelty. Review process will
begin immediately after submission.
When authors resubmit the revised manuscript whose original version has been rejected in the previous submission, the authors
are encouraged to indicate a manuscript ID assigned in the previous submission and to append a "Reply Letter" to expedite thereview process. Accepted papers will appear on the IEICE ComEX web site as advance publication as soon as payment of thearticle charge is confirmed by the ComEX Publishing Office. All of them will appear as a special cluster in ComEX web site on
December 1st, 2020.
ComEX will accept only the letter type of manuscripts by electronic submission using one of the officially approved formats(LaTeX style file or Microsoft Word template). Submit a manuscript and electronic source files (LaTeX/Word files, figures) via
the IEICE Web site https://review.ieice.org/regist/regist_baseinfo_e.aspx. In this regard, authors should choose [in Conjunction
with IEICE General Conference 2020] as a“Journal/Section” on the online screen. Do not choose [Regular-XB].
Contact Person: Noriaki Kamiyama
Faculty of Engineering, Fukuoka University
Email: comex-ss-gc2020@ml.ieice.org
4. Special Cluster Editorial Committee
Guest Editor-in-Chief: Hiroo Sekiya (Chiba Univ.)
Guest Editors: Kazunori Hayashi (Osaka City Univ.), Noriaki Kamiyama (Fukuoka Univ.)
Guest Associate Editors: Yuyuan Chang (Tokyo Inst. of Tech.), Chiao-En Chen (National Chung Cheng University),
Young-June Choi (Ajou University), Chun-I Fan (National Sun Yat-sen University), Mariusz Glabowski (Poznan Univ. of
Tech.), Bo Gu (Sun Yat-sen University), Guan Gui (Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications), Hiroaki Harai(National Inst. of Info. and Commun. Tech.), Ezra Ip (NEC Laboratories America), Hiroshi Kubo (Ritsumeikan Univ.), Ayumu
Kubota (KDDI R&D), Zhetao Li (Xiangtan University), Richard T. B. Ma (National University of Singapore), Tzyh-Ghuang
Ma (National Taiwan Univ. of Sci. and Tech.), Ryutaroh Matsumoto (Nagoya Univ., Aalborg Univ.), Hiroaki Morino (Shibaura
Inst. of Tech.), Hoang Nam Nguyen (Vietnam National University Hanoi), Wakaha Ogata (Tokyo Inst. of Tech.), Masakatsu
Ogawa (Sophia Univ.), Chuwong Phongcharoenpanich (King Mongkut's Inst. of Tech. Ladkrabang), Nordin Ramli (MalaysianInst. of Microelectronic Systems), Kentaro Saito (Tokyo Institute of Technology), Yuji Sekiya (The Univ. of Tokyo), Takatoshi
Sugiyama (Kogakuin Univ.), Hidenori Takahashi (KDDI R&D), Ryo Yamaguchi (Softbank Mobile), Shuto Yamamoto (NTT),
Hui Zhang (Nankai University), Miao Zhang (Xiamen Univ.)* Authors must agree to the “Copyright Transfer and Page Charge Agreement” via electric submission.
* Please note that if accepted, all authors are requested to pay for the article charges.
* At least one of the authors must be an IEICE member when the manuscript is submitted for review. We recommend that
authors unaffiliated with IEICE apply for membership. For membership applications, please visit the web-page,
http://ieice.org/eng/join/member.html.
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[IEICE-CS Information]

IEICE Communications Society – GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Vol. 44, No. 2

From Editor’s Desk
 IEICE Society Conference 2020

IEICE Society Conference 2020 will be held at Tokushima University, Tokushima-city, from 15th to 18th September
2020. English sessions are scheduled in the conference. Please check out the latest conference information on the
IEICE web site at:https://www.ieice-taikai.jp/2020society/en/index.html

 Planning to renew GNL in 2021

IEICE-CS GLOBAL NEWSLETTER (GNL) was first published in August 2002 and has been published 72 times
over approximately 18 years. We plan to renew GNL in 2021 for immediately providing society activities, related
conference reports, and society information via the IEICE-CS Web site.

 My Treasures

I’m Yoshitaka Enomoto, Director, International Publication, IEICE
Communications Society. In June of 2018, I became the Director of Planningand Member Activities of IEICE-CS, and started editing the IEICE-CS
GLOBAL NEWSLETTER (GNL). While editing GNL, I sent many emails to
GNL authors and read over 100 articles in about 3 years. It was hard but
enjoyable work. This time I will resign from the editorial staff of GNL. I showa photo of my treasures. Many thanks to all GNL authors, readers and editorial
staffs. See you again sometime and somewhere!
IEICE-CS GLOBAL NEWSLETTER Editorial Staff
No special order is observed.

Editorial Staff of this issue

Yohei KOGA
Fujitsu Connected Technologies, Ltd.
Platform Development Div.
Director, Planning and Member Activities, IEICE Communications Society

Nazuki HONDA
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
Access Network Service Systems Laboratories
Director, Planning and Member Activities, IEICE Communications Society

Yoshitaka ENOMOTO
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation
Access Network Service Systems Laboratories
Director, International Publication, IEICE Communications Society

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IEICE Communications Society

IEICE Society Conference 2020
15-18 September 2020
Tokushima University, Josanjima Campus
Every autumn, each Society organizes a Society Conference to provide a forum
where members can present their study results and exchange views. At present,
four of the Societies -- the Engineering Sciences Society, the NOLTA Society,
the Communications Society, and the Electronics Society -- hold their Society
Conferences as a joint event. The Communications Society Conference includes
English-language sessions in addition to the Japanese-language sessions.
Please check out the latest information on the IEICE web site at:https://www.ieice-taikai.jp/2020society/en/index.html

Kikai-Shinko-Kaikan Bldg.,5-8, Shiba-Koen, 3, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 105-0011, JAPAN
Web: http://www.ieice.org TEL: +81-3-3433-6691 FAX: +81-3-3433-6659
IEICE Communications Society: cs-secretariat@ieice.org