Dublin Ireland

























CIICT 2012 Invited Speakers
Alan F. Smeaton has been a Professor of Computing at Dublin City University since 1997 and is currently deputy director of CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies. He has previously been Dean of Faculty and Head of School and now leads a team of more than 40 researchers in the broad area of the sensor web. The focus of Alan’s research work now is in information access for all kinds of human digital memory applications and in exploiting how sensors can be used to help with this.

Talk Title : Sensor Data Streams from Smart Metering
 One of the fundamental infrastructure deployments which we are about to experience is the rollout of smart metering technology for energy consumption in homes and businesses. In Ireland it is part of the National Development Plan that such domestic metering will go in tandem with metering of water and the expectation is that this will offer opportunity for load-based tariffs and optimal use of the grid, making it in effect a smart grid. But apart from more detailed billing, what will this offer the consumer? In our work we have been trialling smart metering deployments in homes in Ireland and developing applications which are designed to offer additional services to consumers. As one would expect, this include energy-related services but also applications around lifestyle analysis, ambient assisted living, and emergency detection. In the presentation I will illustrate this work and the new opportunities it is creating. 

 
Xiaohong Guan received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in control engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut, Storrs, in 1993.  From 1993 to 1995, he was a consulting engineer at PG&E. From 1985 to 1988, he was with the Systems Engineering Institute, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China. From January 1999 to February 2000, he was with the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Since 1995, he has been with the Systems Engineering Institute, Xi’an Jiaotong University, and was appointed Cheung Kong Professor of Systems Engineering in 1999, and dean of the School of Electronic and Information Engineering in 2008. Since 2001 he has been the director of the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, Tsinghua University, and served as head of the Department of Automation, 2003–2008.  He is an IEEE Fellow and is serving the Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems.  His research interests include allocation and scheduling of complex networked resources, cyber-physical systems including smart grid, sensor networks, etc., and network security.

Talk Title : Efficient Energy Production, Consumption and Transmission Facilitated by Smart Grid Technology
Growing energy demand and environmental concerns requires a large number of renewable resources, storage devices, and demand response supported by reliable, secure, flexible and efficient smart power grid. Efficient electric energy production is challenging even with traditional energy sources such as thermal, hydro, pumped storage, etc., due to the huge number of decision variables, both discrete and continuous, and complicated operating and network constraints. New renewable energy resources such as wind and solar with highly uncertain production capacities add additional dimensions of difficulties in operation stability and reliability. Smart grid technology provides a possibility to better coordinate the renewable energy production with “storable” hydro energy while satisfying demand and security requirements with the lowest production costs or carbon emissions.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 40% of total energy is consumed in buildings in industrialized countries, among which 68% is electricity. Smart grid integrating power grid with information network provides a desirable infrastructure for energy efficient buildings. In additional to the power source from the grid, a micro grid for buildings may contain autonomous power generators possibly CHP, renewable energy resources such as PV solar cells, power storage devices and system loads including HVAC systems, lighting equipment, IT data centers, etc. There is an enormous opportunity for building energy savings through efficient operation. To accomplish this task, a cyber-physical network as the basis of a micro grid is needed with many low-cost micro sensors possibly wireless deployed for measuring comfort conditions such as temperature, humidity, lighting, air quality, etc., and occupant locations and movements. With support of smart grid technology, energy efficient building operation can be achieved through coordinated scheduling and control of the HVAC system, lighting, renewable energy sources, power storage, etc., with possible thermal load management by controlling fresh air, room illumination, etc.
Interaction between energy producers and consumers with time varying or dynamic pricing facilitated by the smart grid is extremely important for effective load management and energy savings.  Pricing modeling and game theoretic analysis needs to be investigated to understand and design optimal pricing policy in terms of social welfare, and to develop the strategy to minimize individual energy consumption and costs.
   
Denis O'Leary graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering from UCC in 1980, and joined the Electricity Supply Board (ESB). In his time with ESB, Denis has served in a number of positions mostly in Distribution and Transmission Networks planning and construction. Denis was appointed Networks Operations Manager for ESB Networks in 1997 and as Head of Asset Management and Regulation in 2003 . He has recently taken up the position of Head of Sustainability and Systems, with specific responsibility for ESB's Smart Networks, Smart Metering, I.T. and Telecomms strategies. Denis is also ESB's representative on the Eurelectric Smart Grids Committee, and is a member of EPRI's Distribution Executive Committee on Intelli Grids.

Talk Title: To be announced.
   
Sakir Sezer is Director and Head of Network and Cyber Security Research at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast and holds the Chair for Secure Information Technologies at Queen's University Belfast. He received his Dipl. Ing. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1994 from RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and his PhD in 1999 from Queen’s University Belfast in UK.  His research is leading major (patented) advances in the field of high-performance content and security processing and is currently commercialised by Titan IC Systems.  He has co-authored over 130 conference and journal papers in the area of high-performance network, content processing and System on Chip. For his achievements Professor Sezer has been awarded a number of prestigious awards including the InvestNI Enterprise Fellowship, and Enterprise Ireland and Intertrade Ireland innovation and enterprise awards. Professor Sezer is also co-founder and CTO of Titan IC Systems and a member of various research and executive committees.

Talk Title: “Forewarned is Forearmed”: Challenges of Defining Smart Grid Security
Many painful and costly missteps have been made as the Internet has evolved far beyond its initial simple concept. The Energy Industry must learn the lessons of IT’s successes and failures, to ensure the successful deployment of secure, dependable Smart Grid technologies and to avoid costly but preventable mistakes.  In this talk Professor Sezer will examine the interrelationship between IT, SCADA and Smart Grid security.  He will give an overview of Smart Grid communications and the evolution of industrial control systems in the context of Smart Grid technologies and security. An analysis of the major issues concerning Smart Grid security is followed by the derivation of the “Seven Pillars” for defining the foundation for a dependable Smart Grid security architecture.
   
John Geoghegan A graduate of Dublin City University, John has 30 years local and international experience in the ICT industry, with multinationals and small indigenous companies and start-ups. He spent several years on the executive management team of Ericsson Ireland where he managed global development / supply / support organisations and worked overseas for several years for Ericsson, as well as for Cable & Wireless. He was VP Engineering of Arantech in Dublin and co-founder and CTO of a ICT start-up company. He has been involved in mentoring and steering several other ICT start-ups over the past few years. More recently, he completed an MSc in Renewable Energy at Newcastle University, UK, and subsequently his focus is the application of ICT to the Green Tech space, particularly to Smart Grid.

Talk Title: Smart Grid: An opportunity for Ireland
A Smart Grid is one in which ICT is incorporated into every aspect of electricity generation, delivery and consumption. Ireland is compelled to accelerate its adoption of Smart Grid due to the pace at which Ireland’s electricity system is being de-carbonised. As a result of its industrial policy for the past few decades, Ireland has a depth of competence in ICT. These 2 factors create an environment where Ireland has the potential to lead the world in the development of the Smart Grid. Collaboration between the power industry, academia and the ICT industry is key to realising this potential
   
Jiaru Lin received a bachelor, Master and PH.D degree successively in the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT). He is the professor and supervisor of Ph.D. candidates in BUPT, and also the responsible professor in the Research Center of Information Theory and Technique in this University, and the deputy director of the Key Laboratory of Universal Wireless Communications (BUPT), Ministry of Education, P. R. China. Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Lin is the commissioner in both the National Information Technology and Standardization Technology Committee and the Teaching Steering Committee in Ministry of Education of China, and the member in the Expert Group of National Engineering Education Accreditation. From 1991 to 1994, he studied in Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. His major research interests include information theory, communication theory, cognitive radio networks and mobile communication.

Talk Title : Energy-Efficient Spectrum Utilization in Cognitive Radio Networks
The unprecedented expansion of wireless networks has resulted in a tremendous increase in energy consumption and left a significant environmental footprint. Making data transmission energy-efficient could not only have a tangibly positive impact on the environment, but also help telecommunication operators attain the long-term profitability. Cognitive Radio (CR), as a promising technology to deal with the low spectrum utilization problem caused by the current inflexible spectrum allocation policy, is attracting an increasing interest from both academic and industrial. Energy efficiency is a critical issue particularly in Cognitive Radio Network (CRN), which needs to be addressed to prolong the battery time of terminals because the CR terminals must consume extra power for spectrum sensing. However, most of the existing works in the literature are devoted to spectrum sensing or sharing aiming to maximize system capacity rather than energy-efficiency. We focus on investigating how to implement energy-efficient spectrum utilization in CRN by balancing system capacity with energy consumption, included the following topics.
1. Spectrum Sharing Fashions in CRN;
2. Metrics to Evaluate Energy efficiency;
3. Energy-efficient Spectrum Utilization Model and Problem Formulation;
4. Existence and Uniqueness of Optimal Spectrum Utilization Scheme;
5. Algorithms Design.
 
   
Linda Doyle is director of CTVR, the telecommunications research centre, and a faculty member in the School of Engineering in Trinity College, University of Dublin. Prof. Doyle is an international leader in cognitive radio research. Her group has built an international reputation in experimental cognitive radio work and shown how these new kinds of communications systems can strongly impact on society. As Director of CTVR Prof. Doyle’s interests go beyond the wireless domain and she is responsible for driving and realising the CTVR vision for fixed and wireless networks of the future. Prof. Doyle also has a strong interest in spectrum policy and is a member of the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board. Prof. Doyle has published over 170 peer-reviewed papers in the field. Prof. Doyle is a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. She is a Director of Xcelerit, a recent CTVR spin-out.

Talk Title: To be announced.
   
Yi Xian Yang, born in 1961, director and Professor of Information Security Center (ISC), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), director of National Engineering Laboratory for Disaster Backup and Recovery. He received his Ph.D degree in electrical engineering and communication systems from BUPT in 1988. His research areas include coding theory, cryptography, information security, Internet/Intranet security, communication theory, graph theory, neural networks, signal processing, software radio, wavelet theory, and discrete mathematics, Electronic Commerce. He has published more than 300 journal papers and 20 books about information security. He has received many honors and awards, e.g. conferred by the Chinese government as Chinese Achievement Young Scientist (1991), awarded by the  Chinese government as Chinese Distinguished Ph.D. Holder (1991), Silver Award of Science and Technology Progressing (STP) from the Ministry of  Education of China (1991), Gold Award of STP from the Ministry of Posts and telecommunications of  China (1992). receiver of the Chinese government's special subsidy (1991), Silver Award of Book-Author of  Excellent Books in Science and Technology (1995), Silver Award of STP from PLA (1996), Silver Award of STP from the Ministry of  Education of China (1996), Gold Award of STP from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of China (1997). He services to many professional societies, e.g. Council member of Chinese Institute Electronics (CIE), Fellow of Chinese Institute of Communications (CIC),  Council member of Chinese Institute of Cryptography, Vice-chairman of the academic committee of CIC.

Talk Title: To be announced.
   
Raffaele Bolla received the Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications in 1994 from the University of Genoa. Since 2004 he is “Professore Associato” at the Department of Communications, Computer and Systems Science (DIST) at the University of Genoa. He is currently leading the Telecommunication Networks and Telematics Laboratory (TNT LAB) at DIST, he is reference person for the International relationships for Engineering Faculty of Genoa University and he is responsible for DIST and CNIT (National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications) of many important research projects and contracts with both public Institutions and private companies. Among the most recent and relevant projects can be cited: the coordination of ECONET (low Energy COnsumption NETworks), an Integrated Project from FP7 (about 10 million of cost), started in 2010; the European Network of Excellence (NoE) Intermedia (Interactive Media with Personal Networked Devices), the national coordination of the PRIN project SORPASSO (flexible SOftware Router PlAtform for Secure Service-specific Overlay networks), the responsibility of the CNIT participation in the NoE TREND (Towards Real energy-efficient Network Design). He acts as reviewer for many different international magazines and participates to technical committees of international congresses. He has co-authored over 140 scientific publications in international journals and international conference proceedings. Most of his research experience is focused on modeling and control of multimedia IP networks, on the design and development of high-performance software router platforms and on the study and development of mechanisms and techniques for energy consumption reduction in telecommunication networks.

Talk Title: To be announced.
   
Stephen Daniels is a faculty member of the School of Electronic Engineering, at Dublin City University. He is currently serving as Executive Director of the National Centre for Plasma Science and Technology. Additionally, he is Director of the Energy and Design Laboratory and the Nanomaterials Processing laboratory at DCU, both multidisciplinary research teams with extensive expertise in plasma technology and energy systems. He has a significant involvement in several large scale research initiatives and centres, including the Precision strategic research cluster, the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute, and the Marine and Environmental Research Hub (MESTECH). He currently leads a research team of PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and Research Fellows with active interests in plasma metrology and control for nanomanufacturing, atmospheric plasma source design and diagnostics for decontamination and sterilization, plasma surface engineering for biosensors, synthesis of thin film materials for photonic devices, and design and characterisation of energy efficient devices. In collaboration with researchers from the RCSI, Stephen aims to develop new plasma technology for the decontamination of environmental sources for healthcare-associated infections, with work funded by the HRB and SFI. To date Stephen has authored more than 60 peer reviewed journal publications, 10 patents, and over 100 international conference contributions. 

Talk Title: To be announced.
   
Lingling Sun received her BEng degree from Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, in 1982; and received her Master degree in 1985 from University of Electronic Science & Technology, China. She joined the Electronics and Information Department of Hangzhou Dianzi University (HDU) as an assistant professor in 1985 and became a professor in 1999. She has been a Vice-president of HDU since 2004. Professor Sun’s major research interests include the Design & CAD of RF IC and the Research of the Integrated Circuits and Systems, such as RF/Microwave device modeling, the RF/Microwave broadband power amplifier design, the research of the RFIC CAD technology and the Development of EDA tool for RFIC. Professor Sun is a Senior Member of IEEE. She is also the director of a Ministry of Education Key Laboratory on RF Circuits and Systems, based in Hangzhou Dianzi University.

Talk Title: To be announced.  
   
Michael Scott a recently retired Professor from DCU after 30 years, is now Chief Cryptographer with Certivox Ltd., a UK-based start-up. He has published extensively on curve-based cryptography, particularly in the new area of pairing-based cryptography. He has made numerous inventions and discoveries in this field.   

Talk Title : Pairing-based Cryptography - What it Offers
In this talk Prof. Scott will give a brief background to pairing-based cryptography, and make the point that it opens up new possibilities for data security. Things are now possible that were previously not possible. The more elaborate structure of the pairing maps particularly well to issues of security that arise in the context of Cloud Computing.