Researcher Profile: Mohammad Upal Mahfuz, Ph.D. student, University of Ottawa

Mohammad Upal Mahfuz is a Ph.D. student of electrical engineering at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He is currently working on nanoscale communication and networking based on molecular communication. He is also interested in ultra wideband wireless communications, satellite-based positioning and navigation systems, and sustainable and renewable energy.

He received his B.Sc. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2002, M.Engg. degree in telecommunications from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand in 2005, and M.Sc. degree in geomatics engineering from the University of Calgary in Canada in 2008.

Call for Papers: Special Issue of JSAC

As we mentioned earlier, an upcoming special issue of the Journal on Selected Areas in Communications will focus on nanonetworks.

The area call for papers is now live.

Please note, paper submission will not be open for another few weeks.

Announcing nanonetworks.org

Nanonetworks now has its own domain: http://nanonetworks.org/

The domain will be the "official" home page of the Nanocom group. Announcements, events, and other dynamic content will continue to appear here on the blog.

The site is somewhat basic and will remain so until I find time to improve it. Contact me if you're interested in helping out as webmaster.

Call for Editorial Board Members: Special issue of JSAC

I am pleased to announce that the Nanocom group will be participating in an upcoming special issue of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), focusing on emerging technologies.  Tentatively, the special issue will have a submission deadline in June 2012, with publication in mid-2013.

All researchers with expertise in nanoscale, molecular, and quantum networking are invited to form the editorial board. Board members will have responsibility to arrange peer reviews for papers in their areas of expertise (through up to two rounds of review), make preliminary assessments of papers based on those reviews, and to assist in the final selection of papers for inclusion in the special issue.

If you are interested to serve on the editorial board, please send an email to Andrew Eckford, along with a CV or brief statement of qualifications, as soon as possible.

Thanks to Prof. Suda for his service

Prof. Tatsuya Suda has stepped down from our executive committee. I would like to thank Prof. Suda for his leadership and service.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Formation of IEEE P1906.1 Standards Working Group

We are delighted to announce the formation of the IEEE P1906.1 standards working group, the first IEEE standard to be proposed in the area of nanonetworking, which will develop common terminology, recommended practices, and standardized performance metrics.  We believe this standard will be instrumental in developing practical and commercial applications for nanonetworks.  Many thanks to our standards liaison, Steve Bush, for his hard work in making this happen!

All interested parties are invited to join this working group; we particularly invite industrial representatives from interested companies.

If you would like to join the group, please send me a message prior to the working group's inaugural meeting, tentatively scheduled for May 16, 2011.  The complete announcement is after the jump.

ComSoc paper awards: Call for nominations

ComSoc award nominations are due on March 1.  We would like to promote the work of our committee by nominating strong papers and/or individuals in nanonetworking for these awards.  Self-nominations are welcome!

The list of ComSoc awards is here.  Our most likely targets would be the "The IEEE Communications Society Award for Outstanding Paper on New Communication Topics" or "The IEEE Communications Society & Information Theory Society Joint Paper Award".  However, we would certainly consider other categories, depending on the paper/individual.

If you have any papers that might be appropriate for these awards, please contact our awards vice-chair, Michael Moore, who will coordinate nominations.

Featured Book: Nanoscale Communication Networks

As Feynman presciently stated about the atomic scale, “there is plenty of room at the bottom” and communication is needed down there. There is a growing body of contributions from diverse fields that both leverages nanoscale properties and overcomes the communication barriers of the nanoscale environment. These include molecular motors, random carbon nanotube networks, calcium signaling, and quantum networking, to name but a few.  The recent book, Nanoscale Communication Networks by Stephen F. Bush, focuses upon ad-hoc communication networking at the nanoscale using all of these techniques and more.

Read more about Steve's book on the GE Global Research Blog.

Links to the book: Google Books | Artech House | Amazon

[The above text was adapted from the GE Global Research blog and reused with permission].