Annual General Meeting 2017

The AGM for 2017 was held on Thursday 2^nd November, 6:00 pm at the Zibibbo Restaurant, 25 Taranaki St, Wellington. Approximately 14 people attended the meeting and the agenda was outlined below. You will find the Chair's report by following this link. The Treasurer's interim draft financial report was distributed at the meeting and we shall provide members with access to the Treasurer's final report when it becomes available.

AGM Agenda:

5:30 pm meet and drinks
6:00 pm AGM
6:45 pm meal (approx cost $60)

• Welcome


• Chair's report


• Treasurer's interim report
• Election of officers for 2018
• Resolution on electronic voting
• Nominations for officers:
  
  • Secretary: Steven Le Moan
  • Treasurer: Yi Mei
  • Membership Development: Abhipray Paturkar

  There were no further nominations received and so these nominations were accepted at the meeting and declared for 2017. Minutes of the AGM are available (in draft form) from our committee page or by following this link, but will only be validated at the next AGM.Images from the event are shown below:
  
  

  
  
  
  
  

  Special Joint IET and IEEE Event

  A Special Joint event from the IET & IEEE
  The IET and IEEE were pleased to announce a special joint event featuring Dr Graham Ault, of Smarter Grid Solutions.
  
  Details were:
  
  Event Title: Smart Approaches to Distributed Generation Connection and Operation
  
  Date: Tuesday 20th June, 2017.
  
  Venue: Te Aro 4 room, The Terrace Conference Centre, The Terrace, Wellington
  
  Time: 12.20 - 1.20pm – refreshments provided.
  
  IMPORTANT! Please RSVP to: darren.baxter@theiet.org
  
  Flyer was available from Archive/2017/graham Ault.pdf
  This talk reviews the international Distributive Generation DG developments and assesses several smart grid approaches to integrating DG. Specifically, Active Network Management (ANM) is explored in greater detail with starting from system and market context and moving through concepts and methods, technologies, applications and implementations.
  Attendees will be brought up to speed with specific international DG development examples and real case studies of the application of ANM to solve power system and DG customer challenges. Demos of the speaker's company products and projects will be provided and a discussion of all aspects of the talk is welcomed.

  Distinguished Small Section Award 2014

  The Region 10 Distinguished Section Award is given to recognize the excellent work of the Section in the previous year and therefore this year (2015) the awards were called the 2014 awards. The award is presented for three categories, namely Small, Medium and Large R10 Distinguished Sections.
  The 2014 R10 Distinguished Sections are:

  • New Zealand Central Section (Small Section category)
  • Lahore Section (Medium Section category) and
  • Kerala Section (Large Section category)

  

  Congratulations from Region 10 to New Zealand Central, Lahore and Kerala Sections!

  2015 Outstanding Membership Retention Award

  The IEEE New Zealand Central Section has been recognised by the IEEE Membership Recruitment and Recovery Committee for achieving its membership development goals that were developed based on the Section's three year performance which recognises continued growth in our membership during that period.
  

  

  Region 10 Outstanding Volunteer Awards 2015

  IEEE Region 10 recognizes and values the important role of members as volunteers to promote the IEEE objectives in the region. The following volunteers (listed in alphabetical order by first name) were acknowledged with the 2015 R10 Outstanding Volunteer Award:

  • Akinori Nishihara (Tokyo Section)
  • Cornelis Jan (Keith) Kikkert (South Australia Section)
  • Jianguo Huang (Xian Section) Lakshminarayana Merugu (Hyderabad Section)
  • Lance Fung (Western Australia Section)
  • Murray Milner (New Zealand Central Section)
  • Nirbhay Chaubey (Gujarat Section)
  • Stefan Mozar (New South Wales Section)
  • Wu Qun (Harbin Section)
  
  Murray Milner - Outstanding Volunteer Award 2015

  Congratulations Murray Milner and the other winners! A presentation was made to Murray Milner by the current Chair of the Central Section, Donald Bailey, at the recent Joint Institutions Breakfast meeting (report given below). Donald Bailey reads a citation outlining significant achievements by Murray (below left) and presents the award (below right).

       

   

  Recent Conferences and Meetings

  • IEEE ANZSCON 2017 was held in Sydney, NSW, Australia on the 10^th and 11^th of August 2017. There were exciting opportunities to meet with some of the top leaders of IEEE, including the IEEE President and Region 10 Director, ANZSCON was the place to learn, share, and network. As the ection's Congress and ANZSCON were held consecutively in Sydney, we sent a somewhoat larger contingent to Australia to attend these two events. Their consolidated report is available by following this link.
    
    Who attended?
    Many IEEE members/non-members, from across the globe, who had an interest in IEEE Student Activities, IEEE Young Professionals (YP) affinity groups, and Women in Engineering (WIE) affinity groups.
    
    Flier containing details of the event can be obtained from here.

  • The Computational Intelligence Chapter held a Distinguished Lecturer talk on Thursday 15 August 2017 at 2:00-3:30pm in the Cotton Building CO 350 at Victoria University of Wellington, the IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter (IEEE New Zealand Central Section) had IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Prof Carlos Coello Coello from CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico, who delivered a great talk on "Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization using Hybrid Approaches". A full report with photos is available by following this link.

  • The IEEE Sections Congress was also recently held in Sydney, Australia from 11 -13 August, 2017. A joint report from the NZ attendees can be found by following this link. It was preceded by ANZSCON as reported above.

  • The following IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Distinguished Lecturer (DL) talk was organized by the IEEE NZ Central Section ComSoc Chapter

    
    

    Presenter: Professor Song Guo (Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

    Title: Device-to-Device Communication in Cellular Networks

    Date: Thursday 27th July 2017

    Time: 1pm (networking after the talk)

    Venue: Presentation Lab (Riddet C 2.143), Massey University, Palmerston North Campus

    Contact: Xiang Gui (X.Gui@massey.ac.nz) or Nurul Sarkar (nurul.sarkar@aut.ac.nz ) for more details.

    Abstract: As the emergence of new wireless applications, data traffic in cellular networks has dramatically increased in recent years, which imposes an immediate requirement for large network capacity. Device-to-device (D2D) communication is recently proposed as a novel and promising solution for increasing network capacity. This talk first tackles the D2D communication from a perspective on economic issues. In particular, we propose a truthful double auction for D2D communications in multi-cell cellular networks for trading resources in frequency-time domain, where cellular users with D2D communication capability act as sellers, and other users waiting to access the network act as buyers. With a sophisticated seller-buyer matching, winner determination and pricing, our design guarantees individual rationality, budget balance, and truthfulness. In the talk we also propose a promising concept of cooperative D2D communication to improve resource utilization in cellular networks. Based on a novel fine-grained resource allocation scheme, we jointly study relay assignment, transmission scheduling, and channel allocation. Finally, some future direction will be discussed.

    Bio: Song Guo is a Full Professor at Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his Ph.D. in computer science from University of Ottawa and was a full professor with the University of Aizu, Japan. His research interests are mainly in the areas of big data, cloud computing, green communication and computing, wireless networks, and cyber-physical systems. He has published over 350 conference and journal papers in these areas and received 5 best paper awards from IEEE/ACM conferences. Dr. Guo has served in editorial boards of several prestigious journals, including IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, and IEEE Communications. He an active volunteer as General/TPC Chair for 20+ international conferences and Chair/Vice-Chair for several IEEE Technical Committees and SIGs. He is a senior member of IEEE, a senior member of ACM, and an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer.

    Brief report on Professor Song Guo's visit:

    1.  We successfully hosted the EEE DL-NSRG Workshop at AUT on Monday 24 July 2017. IEEE DL Professor Song Guo (Hong Kong Polytechnic University) delivered his keynote talk at the workshop. Research students have also presented their work on the day. Despite of the busy time of the year about 40 people within and outside of AUT attended the keynote session. Having ample opportunity for discussion, people have enjoyed networking during morning tea break. The event was co-sponsored by AUT and IEEE.  

    2.  Prof Guo also gave lectures in Wellington, Palmerston North, and Christchurch on 25, 26, and 27 July, respectively.

  • We are pleased to report that the last IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society workshop was held on the 20th and 21st of April at the School of Engineering and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn parade.
    
    Details were:
    
    Event: Two-Day Workshop on Smart Sensors, Measurements and Instrumentation for Health, Industry and Environment
    Dates: April 20-21, 2017
    
    Venue: LB118, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn campus
    
    Flyer available from this link. A report on this event can be found by following this link.
  
  
  
  • IEEE New Zealand Signal Processing / Information Theory Chapter Event:
    
    Title: Estimating power spectral density for acoustic signal enhancement - an effective approach for practical applications
    Speaker Yusuke Hioka
    Date: Monday, 10 April 2017
    Time: 4 - 5pm
    Venue:Ag Hort Building (AH2.83), Massey University, Palmerston North Campus
    Full details were available through the following link.
  
  
  
  • Power and Energy Society Event: Title: Power Distribution System Planning in Smart Grids with Photovoltaics
    Speaker: Michael Emmanuel
    Date: Tuesday 14th March
    Time: 2.00 – 3.00 pm
    Venue: CO350 – Cotton Building, Kelburn Campus
    Full details were available through the following link.
    
    
  • The 2017 - 2^nd Workshop on Recent Trends in Telecommunications Research (RTTR). This workshop was held at Massey University, Palmerston North on Feb 10^th, 2017. Details were available from this flyer.
  • Nicolás Erdödy, organises a regular conference, Multicore World here in Wellington. The 6th conference is being held from February 20-22. Nicolás offered a discounted attendance fee for IEEE Central Section members, down 20% from $1,200 to $960 (ex GST).
    Further details including an impressive list of speakers were available from their website: https://openparallel.com/multicore-world-2017/program-2017/. The event was well attended by approximately 60 delegates and was very successful. Some of the papers will be put online in due course.

  Celebrating IEEE Region 10's 50 Year Jubilee Event

  

  Across New Zealand we celebrated IEEE Region 10's 50 year jubilee on Tuesday 3 October from 6pm - 9pm.
  
  We had 3 guest speakers who will be reflecting on a range of contributions of the IEEE to NZ society over the last 50 years. The presentations will be held simultaneously in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, with speakers from all 3 venues.
  
  Within the NZ Central Section, we had Dr Murray Milner presenting on "A Snapshot of Information and Communication Technology in New Zealand over the last 50 years". A copy of his presentation may be found here.
  
  The Wellington venue was:
  
  Lecture Theatre 3 - GBLT3
  Old Government Buildings
  15 Lambton Quay, Wellington.

  IEEE Distinguished Lecture for the IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter by Jun Wang (Hong Kong)

  The IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter announced the visit of IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Chair Professor Jun Wang (Hong Kong) an IEEE Fellow and the delivery of a Distinguished Lecture in November 2016 as per the details given below:
  
  Title: The State of the Art of Neurodynamic Optimization: Past, Present, and Prospects
  Venue: CO350, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn Campus
  Date: 23 November 2016
  Time: 3:10-4:30pm
  Cost: Free - All were welcome.
  
  A brief report including an abstract of the talk and a bio of the speaker can be obtained from here.

  Power and Energy Society Event

  Title: Practical Power Flow Controller Brings Benefits Of Power Electronics To The Grid
  Presenter: Kalyan K. Sen, PhD, PE, MBA
  Date: Thursday 7 December, 2017
  Time: 5.30 pm
  Venue: Transpower, Waikoukou Building, 22 Boulcott Street, Wellington
  

  Abstract:
  Power flow control techniques have been practised, from using inductors, capacitors, transformers and load tap changers in the earlier days of electrical engineering to power electronics-based solutions in recent years. Even though the costs and complexities of the available solutions vary widely, the basic underlying theory of power flow control is still the same as it always has been. The question is which solution one should employ. The answer depends on knowing what the true need is. The power industry’s pressing need for the most economical ways to transfer bulk power along a desired path may be met by building new transmission lines, which is a long and costly process. Alternatively, it may be quicker and cheaper to utilize existing transmission lines more efficiently. The key is to identify the underutilised transmission lines and harness their dormant capacity to increase the power flows to the lines’ thermal limits.

  Since the commissioning of the first commercial power electronics-based Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS controller two decades ago, a great deal has been learned about the true needs of a utility for its everyday use and they are high reliability, high efficiency, low installation and operating costs, component non-obsolescence, fast enough response for utility applications, high power density, interoperability, and easy relocation to adapt to changing power system’s needs while providing the optimal power flow control capability. This was the motivation to develop a SMART Power Flow Controller (SPFC) that enhances the controllability in an electric power transmission system by using functional requirements and cost-effective solutions.

  This presentation is designed to provide the basic principles of power flow control theory, an overview of the most commonly used power flow controllers, and future trends. The presentation will be of particular interest to all utility power engineering professionals. The required background is an equivalent of an Electrical Engineering degree with familiarity in power engineering terminology. The audience will hear from an expert who actually designed and commissioned a number of power electronics-based FACTS controllers since its inception in the 1990s.

  Speaker, Kalyan Sen, is a newly selected Fulbright Scholar, is the Chief Technology Officer of Sen Engineering Solutions, Inc. that specializes in developing SMART power flow controllers—a functional requirements-based and cost-effective solution. He spent 30 years in academia and industry and became a Westinghouse Fellow Engineer. He was a key member of the Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) development team at the Westinghouse Science & Technology Center in Pittsburgh. He contributed in all aspects (conception, simulation, design, and commissioning) of FACTS projects at Westinghouse. He conceived some of the basic concepts in FACTS technology. He has authored or coauthored more than 25 peer-reviewed publications, 8 issued patents, a book and 4 book chapters in the areas of FACTS and power electronics. He is the coauthor of the book titled, Introduction to FACTS Controllers: Theory, Modeling, and Applications, IEEE Press and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2009, which is also published in Chinese and Indian paperback editions. He is the co-inventor of Sen Transformer. He received BEE, MSEE, and PhD degrees, all in Electrical Engineering, from Jadavpur University, India, Tuskegee University, USA, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA, respectively. He also received an MBA from Robert Morris University, USA. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is a Distinguished Toastmaster who led District 13 of Toastmasters International as its Governor to be the 10^th-ranking District in the world in 2007-8.

  Kalyan, a Senior Member of IEEE, has served the organization in many positions:
  
  Under his leadership, IEEE Pittsburgh Section and its three chapters (PES, IAS and PELS) received Best Section and Chapter Awards. His other past positions included Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery (2002 – 2007), Technical Program Chair of the 2008 PES General Meeting in Pittsburgh, Chapters and Sections Activities Track Chair of the 2008 IEEE Sections Congress in Quebec City, Canada, PES R2 Representative (2010 and 2011) and Member of the IEEE Center for Leadership Excellence (CLE) Committee (2013, 2014).

  He has been serving as an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer since 2002. In that capacity, he has given presentations on power flow control technology more than 100 times in 15 countries. He is an inaugural class (2013) graduate of the IEEE CLE Volunteer Leadership Training (VOLT) program. Kalyan is the recipient of the IEEE Pittsburgh Section PES Outstanding Engineer Award (2004) and Outstanding Volunteer Service Award for reviving the local Chapters of PES and IAS from inactivity to world-class performance (2004). He has been serving as the Special Events Coordinator of the IEEE Pittsburgh Section for the last decade. He is the Region 1-3 Coordinator of Power Electronics Society.
  
  For a more complete announcement for this event, please download the flyer using this link.
  
  For further details, click on
  https://www.ieee-pes.org/images/files/pdf/chapters/archive/April2009_Chapters_Sen_PES_Volunteer.pdf

  Associate Editor Appointment

  Bing Xue has been appointed as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Computational Intelligence Magazine (Impact Factor: 3.647), which is a major journal in Computational Intelligence. Her main role as an Associate Editor is to participate in the discussion of the major scope of this journal, identifying emergent areas and organising special issues, and coordinating the review process of related paper submissions. This good recognition of our Central Section member Bing's work and reputation in Computational Intelligence.
  

  

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