ECE Researchers Join the Fight Against COVID-19!

Researchers from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC have joined the fight against COVID-19. They’ve developed a systematic feedback strategy they say can help public health authorities in their efforts to contain the virus over the next several months.

Their proposed methodology — inspired by work of epidemiologists at Imperial College and others — does not need to rely on accurate predictive models. It uses hospital ICU capacity as a barometer for determining when physical distancing should be tightened up, and when it should be relaxed.

The team that performed the analysis include ECE’s Guy Dumont, Greg Stewart and Klaske van Heusden. They explain the rationale behind the method as well as the importance of this research.

What is the significance of a feedback-based strategy for fighting COVID-19?

There are signs that Canada is making progress on flattening the curve of new COVID-19 infections, but public health authorities stress that it’s critical to keep the momentum going. Canadians need to continue physical distancing — the primary non-pharmaceutical weapon in this fight — over the next several months while awaiting a vaccine.

However, people need to know what their exit strategy is. When can distancing be safely relaxed for society to continue functioning? Their methodology can enable decision makers to fine-tune the timing, duration and scope of intervention measures like isolation and quarantining.

This can help public health officials bring the outbreak under control and manage hospital caseloads as the public waits for herd immunity to take effect or for a vaccine to be developed — while at the same time permitting safe relaxing of physical distancing.

What does the feedback-based method look like?

A standard SEIR (susceptible, exposed, infected, recovered) epidemic model was used, typically used by public health researchers to predict the spread and impact of an outbreak. They use the number of available hospital ICU beds as the primary measure of health care capacity. The goal is always to bring infectivity rates to manageable levels.

As an example, if hospitals in jurisdiction X are approaching overcapacity, the feedback-designed policy will suggest an increase to the physical distancing in the region. When the healthcare capacity increases, the policy can suggest an optimal time for policymakers to relax or lift these intervention strategies. It’s key that many or most interventions have intermediate options that can be leveraged and thus avoid oscillations and repeated outbreaks.

Their approach emphasizes the important role that feedback can play to stabilize the system. Left on its own the epidemic is unstable, i.e. it grows exponentially. By applying a basic control principle known as feedback stabilization, it is possible to bring and maintain the propagation rate to a level manageable by the healthcare system. Thus, they’ve drawn on engineering principles to provide policy suggestions that take into account economic considerations and medical constraints.

How does this add to the current knowledge of the novel coronavirus?

Current epidemiological models of COVID-19 do not have an accurate way of estimating when to relax and when to tighten distancing interventions. An overly aggressive on-off approach may lead to unmanageable swings in health care capacity and the number of new cases. This is for instance what happened in St. Louis during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

The team believes that by bringing computer feedback to bear on the policymaking process they can have greater health outcomes for everyone concerned. They hope to work with other researchers in Canada or elsewhere to further develop this methodology, and possibly make it more interactive to help educate the public.

Hossam Shoman Wins 1st Place in ECE Heat’s 3MT Competition!

In February, Hossam Shoman won first place in ECE Heat’s 3MT Competition and has also secured a spot in the UBC 3MT Semi-Finals for his presentation, “A Stable Laser, without an Isolator”. His research began in September 2016, which focused on improving the performance of electronic chips using photonics. Photonics is a term that combines optics (photons) and electronics. As the speed of data communication on electronic chips starts to saturate, integrating optics with electronics on the same silicon chip – making the so-called photonic chip – can push these speeds beyond what electronics can do on their own. The first element required in a photonic chip is an integrated laser. Following the laser, is an isolator, a device that provides stability to the laser’s operation. These isolators are made of rare earth elements, which are bulky, expensive and do not easily integrate on silicon platforms. This has been a major blockade for the large-scale integration of photonic chips and several applications that rely on on-chip solutions.

Currently, he and his team have found a cost-effective way to stabilize semiconductor lasers. Instead of using rare earth elements to make optical isolators, they design an optical circuit, on the same silicon platform that contains the photonic components, that can perform similarly to an isolator. The way they stabilize the laser is much more cost-effective compared to the current methods. This means that lasers used in data centres and high-speed communication systems can be produced at a large-scale and low-cost.

This is significant as their technology does not rely on any changes to the current CMOS foundries that fabricate electronic chips, which is a requisite for the large-scale deployment of electronic-photonic chips on silicon platforms, and a key enabler of several revolutionizing technologies that rely on on-chip solutions, such as future quantum communication and computing systems.

Currently, they have a proof-of-concept of their working technology. A patent for their work has also been submitted, and they are in the process of writing a manuscript to publish their findings. The next step is to do market research and eventually set up a company to commercialize their technology.

Ahmed E. Mostafa Wins 2nd Place in ECE Heat’s 3MT Competition!

Ahmed Elhamy Mostafa joined the ECE department in September 2015 and officially started his research about “Medium Access Control and Resource Allocation for Massive IoT” in January 2016. He recently won second place in the ECE Heat portion of the 3 Minute Thesis competition for his presentation surrounding his research called, “The Middle-person in the Smart City”.

Essentially, the goal of his research is to enable the Internet of Things (IoT) in 5G communication systems. This can be done by providing channel and power allocation algorithms to support the IoT applications that require providing energy-efficient connectivity to a large number of devices simultaneously. These algorithms achieve the goals of energy-efficiency and massive connectivity by combining communication technologies (e.g., non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and backscatter communications) and mathematical tools (e.g., optimization and machine learning).

The key finding of his team’s research is to design channel and power allocation algorithms based on maximizing the connectivity, which means maximizing the number of IoT devices that meet a certain performance requirement (e.g., minimum data rate threshold). In these solutions, IoT devices are encouraged to share communication channels using NOMA. The research proposes an algorithm that matches the IoT devices that can share the same channel while satisfying performance and power budget requirements and taking the deployment and channel status information into account.

This is important because in human-to-human communications (H2H), main applications, such as video streaming, require a higher communication quality (i.e., higher data rate). In their research, they highlight that for some categories of IoT applications (e.g., environmental sensing), providing a higher communication quality (i.e., higher data rate) is not the major objective. It is more important to provide a minimum communication quality for the largest number of devices, and so, he and his team primarily develop channel and power allocation algorithms that are more suitable for these IoT applications accordingly.

His team’s research shall encourage the industry to adopt NOMA and backscattering in the 5G communication standards to support massive IoT. In addition, some mobile applications may be updated/developed to help with IoT data transfer to provide energy-efficient connectivity for the IoT devices.

The team’s next steps include enhancing their proposed algorithms, which are built using mathematical models, by utilizing the data from IoT networks to develop data-driven algorithms using machine learning tools (e.g., deep learning and deep reinforcement learning). Ahmed has also earned a place to compete in the UBC 3MT semi-finals taking place on March 10!

Prof. Cheung Nominated for 2020 YWCA Women of Distinction Award!

Professor Karen Cheung.

Biomedical Engineering and ECE Professor Karen Cheung has recently been nominated for the 2020 YWCA Women of Distinction Award, in the Research, the Sciences & Technology Category.

The esteemed award is recognized nationally and honours extraordinary women leaders, while highlighting YWCA programs and services that improve the lives of thousands of people each year across Metro Vancouver.

Karen Cheung’s research areas are in Biomedical Technologies and Emerging Micro/Nano Technologies, and include lab-on-a-chip systems for cell culture and characterization, inkjet printing for tissue engineering, and implantable neural interfaces. She is also a member of both the BioMEMS and Microsystems and Nanotechnology research groups.

Part of the YWCA event involves a Connecting the Community Award, in which the nominee who gets the most votes will get to support $10,000, donated by Scotiabank, to a community program of her choice.

Cheung’s chosen program is Early Learning and Care. “As a biomedical engineering professor, I see firsthand how eager our students are to gain the skills they will use to transform lives in emerging areas of medicine. I choose to support early learning because childhood science and engineering education is essential to give young children the fun, engaging activities that empower them to see themselves as problem solvers,” she says.

The 37th annual YWCA Women of Distinction Award ceremony will be held on May 11, 2020 at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver. Leading up to this event, we ask you to support Karen Cheung’s nomination in her campaign for the Connecting the Community Award. Voters can vote once per day from March 4 to April 24, 2020.

Dr. Jim McEwen, UBC ECE graduate, has kindly offered to sponsor a table for UBC’s Biomedical Engineering Student Team (BEST) members at the upcoming award ceremony if voting is successful. This is an exciting opportunity to celebrate and support incredible women in engineering, while making a positive impact right here in Vancouver.

BC Hydro/Powertech Invited Lectures

Lecture 2: “BC Hydro’s Future Grid Modernization”

March 4 | 12:00 – 2:00 pm | KAISER 2020/2030

This is the second lecture of BC Hydro/Powertech’s series of presentations for 2020. This presentation will describe the plans of BC Hydro to modernize its grid in the next years. This is a one-hour presentation with an extra half an hour for networking with BC Hydro engineers.

ABSTRACT

Mr. Papadoulis current role is to lead the Future Grid and Modernization Team of BC Hydro to prepare a Roadmap to plot out the future power system and to align with and operationalize CleanBC as well as the Phase 2 of the BC Government Review. The theme of the Strategy and Roadmap is to ensure that BC Hydro is ready for all that the future brings, and to learn to quickly adapt to the changing climate, the evolving energy industry, and the needs of its customers. In addition to the technical work, we must propel the boundaries on policy, regulation, influence legislation, and recognize we may have to do things differently in the future. Along with looking into the future, the Future Grid and Modernization Team performs Asset Management functions for Revenue Metering, Electric Vehicle Charging, and Automation which are vital components of the Strategy and Roadmap.

Biography

Jim Papadoulis received a B.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from The University of British Columbia in 1992. He has been in industry for 27 years (18 with BC Hydro). He is a Registered Professional Engineer in BC since 1996. He has a Certificate as a Project Management Professional from the Project Management Institute, 2006, and a Certificate in Asset Management from the Institute of Asset Management, 2019. His current title at BC Hydro is Manager, Future Grid & Modernization.

Professor Wei Yu Inaugural Speaker Ian F. Blake Lectureship

ECE is pleased to announce two talks by Prof. Wei Yu, the inaugural speaker for the Ian F. Blake Lectureship, on Friday February 21, 2020.

The Ian F. Blake Lectureship was established in July 2019 with a gift made to UBC by Dr. Vijay Bhargava. This series of lectures honours the work of Ian F. Blake, a Canadian pioneer in the field of Information and Communications Theory and Honorary Professor in ECE.

Talk 1: Spatial Deep Learning for Wireless Scheduling

February 21, 11 am, Kaiser 2020

What is the role of machine learning in the design and optimization of communication systems? In this talk, we examine the well-known challenging problem of optimal scheduling of interfering links in a dense wireless network, and point out that the traditional optimization approach of first estimating all the interfering channel strengths then optimizing the scheduling based on the model may not always the best. This is because channel estimation is resource intensive, especially in a dense network. To address this issue, we investigate the possibility of using a deep learning approach to bypass channel estimation and to schedule links efficiently based solely on the geographic locations of transmitters and receivers. This can be accomplished either by supervised learning using locally optimal schedules generated from fractional programming for randomly deployed device-to-device networks as training data, or by unsupervised learning. In both cases, we use a novel neural network architecture that takes the geographic spatial convolutions of the interfering or interfered neighboring nodes as input over multiple feedback stages to learn the optimum solution. The resulting neural network gives excellent performance for sum-rate maximization and is capable of generalizing to larger deployment areas and to deployments of different link densities. Further, we propose a novel approach of utilizing the sum-rate optimal scheduling heuristics over judiciously chosen subsets of links to provide fair scheduling across the network, thereby showing the promise of using deep learning to solve discrete optimization problems in wireless networking. (Joint work with Wei Cui and Kaiming Shen)

Talk 2: Perfect Hashing, Hypergraph Covering, Identification Capacity, and Collision-Free Feedback for Massive Random Access

February 21, 3 pm, Kaiser 2020

Designing multiple-access protocols capable of supporting massive but sporadic machine-type communications is a key requirement for the future integration of wireless cellular communication systems with Internet-of-Things. In this talk, we consider a massive random access network in which a small random subset of K active users, out of a large number of N total potential users, seek to communicate with a base station. We examine an approach in which the base station first determines the user activities based on an uplink pilot phase, then broadcasts a common feedback message to all the active users for the scheduling of their subsequent data transmissions. Our main question is: What is the minimum amount of common feedback needed to schedule K users in K transmission slots while completely avoiding collisions? Instead of a naive scheme of using K log(N) feedback bits, this talk presents upper and lower bounds to show that the minimum number of required common feedback bits scales linearly in K, plus an additive term that scales only as O(log log(N)). The solution to this problem is closely related to that of constructing a minimal family of perfect hash functions and also that of constructing a minimal covering of a complete hypergraph. The solution has a curious resemblance to the notion of identification capacity. (Joint work with Justin Kang)

Biography

Wei Yu received the B.A.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering and Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto since 2002, where he is now Professor and holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Information Theory and Wireless Communications. Prof. Wei Yu currently serves as a Vice President of the IEEE Information Theory Society, and has served on its Board of Governors since 2015. He was an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer (2015-16), an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (2017-20), and chaired the Signal Processing for Communications and Networking Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society (2017-18). He received the IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communication in 2019, the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications in 2019, the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award in 2017 and 2008, the Journal of Communications and Networks Best Paper Award in 2017, an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship in 2015, and an IEEE Communications Society Best Tutorial Paper Award in 2015. Prof. Wei Yu is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

ECE Professor elected to US National Academy of Engineering

Rabab Ward, a professor emeritus in UBC’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been elected a Foreign Member of the United States’ National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for her “innovative applications of signal processing to industrial and bioengineering problems.”

One of the highest professional honours an engineer can receive, election to the NAE recognizes those who have made identifiable contributions to “engineering research, practice, or education” or to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.”

It is a yearlong process that culminates in all present members of the academy voting on a final list of nominees in January.

The first female engineering professor in British Columbia, Ward has authored eight patents and over 500 refereed research papers and conference articles in fields such as signal detection and image encoding, recognition and restoration. Her work has led to advancements in cable and high-definition television, medical imaging, brain computer interfaces and other areas.

Ward was the first woman to receive the R.A. Machlachlan Award, the highest award of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC, and is the only woman to receive the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Norbert Wiener Society Award. Among her numerous other awards are the UBC Killam Award for Excellence in Mentoring and UBC Applied Science’s Centennial Gold Medal.

A past president and member of the board of governors of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, Ward is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the Engineering Institute of Canada.

This year, the NAE elected 87 new members and 18 new international members. The 2020 class of elected members will be formally inducted into the academy during a ceremony at the NAE’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, on October 4.

Professor Ali Mesbah receives 2019 UBC Killam Research Prize

ECE Professor Dr. Ali Mesbah received the 2019 UBC Killam Research Prize in the Junior Category, which recognizes outstanding research and scholarly contributions.

Dr. Mesbah was nominated for his impressive research record, and significant impact on software testing and the analysis of modern software systems. His work has been recognized through five Distinguished and Best Paper Awards.

Software errors cost the global economy billions of dollars per year and software developers spend around half of their programming time finding and fixing software-related failures. Professor Mesbah has been at the forefront of research in creating novel techniques for automatically analyzing and testing complex software programs to improve their dependability. He has also made significant contributions in areas of test adequacy assessment, software bug pattern discovery, fault localization, and automated repair of buggy software programs.

For more details on Dr. Mesbah’s research, please visit his website

Hey Google, are my housemates using my smart speaker?

UBC ECE research shows more needs to be done to alleviate user concerns about privacy and security

Surveys show that consumers are worried that smart speakers are eavesdropping on their conversations and day-to-day lives. Now University of British Columbia researchers have found that people are also concerned about something else: friends, family and others who may have access to these devices.

The team spoke to 26 Canadian adults who used shared smart speakers at home, including Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple HomePod. They found that participants not only worried about keeping their data safe from the manufacturer or other entities; they also feared potential misuse of the device by people they actually live with and know.

“They worried that their housemates could order stuff online, overhear private conversations or access other people’s reminders, calendars and phone contacts,” explained senior author of the study Konstantin Beznosov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who specializes in cybersecurity at UBC. “Of course, they were aware these actions could well be unintentional — such as a child accidentally using the last-number-dialled feature to call up their parent’s employer, for example.”

Interestingly, the nature of the concern depended on the participant’s “mental model” or technical understanding of how smart speakers work, notes study primary author Yue Huang, a PhD student in electrical and computer engineering.

“Participants who were very familiar with shared smart speakers were more worried about how technology shortcomings could affect the security of their devices,” said Huang. “An example is a smart speaker that occasionally fails to distinguish the main user’s voice from another, which means it could grant people access to information they shouldn’t have.”

However, users with more basic knowledge of how smart speakers work were more focused on their housemates’ potential actions, and this sometimes meant seeing a threat where there was none.

“One participant who worried his family member could redial a number was unaware the feature was not even available on the device,” said Huang, noting that the study is the first to explore these mental models about shared smart speakers and link these models to attitudes.

These results suggest more work is needed to improve consumers’ understanding of shared smart speakers and to make the technology more reliable, adds Beznosov.

“One in four U.S. adults and one in five Canadians say they own a smart speaker. People like being able to stream music, obtain weather forecasts, control other smart devices and get the news with simple voice commands. But since smart speakers are commonly shared among housemates, technology developers should take into account these consumer concerns. And manufacturers should provide more technical support to help users manage their risks.”

The study will be presented in April at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Honolulu.

Photo by BENCE BOROS on Unsplash

James McEwen Inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame

James McEwen, a UBC alumnus and adjunct professor in UBC’s Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Medicine, has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) for his invention of the automatic surgical tourniquet, a medical device that has significantly improved surgical safety, quality and efficiency around the world.

Tourniquets are used to limit arterial blood flow, reducing blood loss and allowing surgeons to work in a blood-free environment. But before McEwen developed his innovation in the late 1970s, tourniquets were unreliable and even dangerous to use, often causing nerve or tissue damage by applying prolonged excessive pressure to the limb or extremity.

“I suspected that with a little ingenuity, I could create a new microprocessor-based tourniquet system that could completely get around all of the problems with mechanical tourniquets,” said McEwen in a convocation address at Simon Fraser University. “Of course, luck played a big role […] I was born in the year that the transistor was invented, I graduated from electrical engineering in the year the microprocessor was invented and I got my Ph.D. in the year that the first microcomputer was introduced.”

McEwen’s tourniquet, which uses a computer to ensure that the device applies only the minimum pressure necessary to stop blood flow, was far safer and more accurate than models available at the time and is now standard equipment in most operating rooms in Western countries. He began developing the technology after learning that a young patient at Vancouver General Hospital had become paralyzed in the arm due to a tourniquet-related accident during routine surgery.

“[Mechanical tourniquets] caused injuries. And the injuries could be quite serious. Everyone accepted that. But I didn’t,” said McEwen, who has over 240 patents and patent applications for medical devices and has long supported educational programs, scholarships and other initiatives to advance innovation, including at UBC. “My intuition and education told me I could create something better.”

Other 2020 NIHF inductees include the inventors of the sports bra and an autonomous robot system that has revolutionized warehouse order fulfillment for e-commerce.

After receiving his bachelor’s (1971) and doctoral (1975) degrees in electrical engineering from UBC, McEwen established the biomedical engineering department at Vancouver General Hospital, serving as its director from 1975 until 1990. He founded the tourniquet technology company Delfi Medical Innovations Inc., co-founded the not-for-profit Medical Device Development Centre, which facilitates the development and evaluation of new medical technologies, and is currently president of Western Clinical Engineering Ltd., a part of the Delfi Medical group.

McEwen is also an Officer of the Order of Canada and the recipient of numerous honours, among them the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, honourary doctorates from SFU and UBC, the Meritorious Achievement Award from the Association of Professional Engineers of British Columbia, the Dean’s Medal of Distinction from UBC Applied Science and the $100,000 Principal Award for Innovation in Canada from the Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation.

The NIHF aims “to recognize inventors and invention, promote creativity and advance the spirit of innovation” by connecting its inductees with budding inventors through STEM education programs, interactive exhibits and other means.

The 48th Induction Ceremony will be held on May 7, 2020 at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. For more information about McEwen’s inventions and accomplishments, please see his official page on the National Inventors Hall of Fame website.