(1) With Mauro de Freitas, Laurent Clavier, Anne Savard and Jean-Marie Gorce, I have a new paper to appear in SPAWC:

Mauro de Freitas, Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Anne Savard and Jean-Marie Gorce, “Power control in symmetric alpha-stable noise channels,” accepted for publication in IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications, (2019).

This will be presented in Nice, France.

(2) Ce Zheng will present our paper in IEEE ICC in Shanghai, China:

Ce Zheng, Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier and Jean-Marie Gorce, “Copula-Based Interference Models for IoT Wireless Networks,” accepted for publication in IEEE ICC, 2019.

While he is in China, he will also present a seminar on copula interference models at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Title and abstract to come.

(3) In his first solo work since joining our group, Bayram Akdeniz will participate in the molecular MIMO competition at the IEEE Communication Theory Workshop in Iceland. Good luck Bayram!

(4) With Bayram Akdeniz, I have a new invited paper in BalkanCom:

Malcolm Egan and Bayram Akdeniz, “On the Limits of Molecular Communication with Coexisting Biological Systems Towards Internet of Bio-Nano Things (Invited Paper),” accepted for publication in BalkanCom, 2019.

Looking forward to presenting the paper in the special session “Beyond Internet of Things: Internet of Everything” hosted by Prof. Ozgur B. Akan and Dr. Ergin Dinc.

(1) On the 15th April, I presented an invited paper in the MoTION workshop of the IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference in Marrakech, Morocco:

Malcolm Egan, “On capacity sensitivity in additive vector symmetric alpha-stable noise channels,” Proc. IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), 2019.

Many thanks to Philippe Mary, Samir Perlaza and Peter Popovski for their kind invitation.

(2) On the 19th April, I presented an invited lecture in the European School on Information Theory in Nice, France. The details for the talk are:

Title: Stability and Sensitivity of the Capacity in Continuous Channels

Abstract: Many notions in information theory admit variational interpretations. One of both theoretical and practical importance is the Shannon capacity, which via the noisy channel coding theorem informs maximum achievable rates. In this talk, we study the capacity from an optimisation-theoretic point of view. In recent years, there have been a number of significant results establishing properties of the optimal input distribution. We briefly overview the key ideas behind this progress and then turn to studying the impact of channel parameters and constraints on the capacity. This approach emphasises perturbations of the optimisation problem for which we present the main tools. Some applications of these results in non-Gaussian noise channels with non-standard constraints are given.

Slides are available here. Many thanks to Paul de Kerret, Ligong Wang, Claudio Weidmann and Michèle Wigger for their kind invitation.

(3) With Bayram Akdeniz and Valeria Loscri, I had two papers presented during April 16th-18th in the 4th Workshop on Molecular Communications in Linz, Austria:

Malcolm Egan, Bayram Akdeniz and Valeria Loscri, “Coexistence Within Communicating Biological Systems,” Proc. 4th Workshop on Molecular Communications, 2019.

Bayram Akdeniz and Malcolm Egan, “Noise Modeling for Molecular Communication via Chemical Reactions and Diffusion,” Proc. 4th Workshop on Molecular Communications, 2019.

(1) In April, I will be presenting a lecture in the 2019 European School on Information Theory. Details on the tutorials, lectures and registration can be found here.

(2) With Ce Zheng, Laurent Clavier, Gareth Peters and Jean-Marie Gorce, I have a paper accepted in IEEE International Conference on Communications:

Zheng, C., Egan, M., Clavier, L. and Gorce, J.-M., “Copula-based interference models for IoT Wireless Networks,” Proc. IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2019.

(3) On the 15th of February, Pratyush Pranav will be presenting in our seminar on information theory and its applications. The details are as follows:

Speaker: Pratyush Pranav (ENS Lyon)

Title: Algebraic topology and its application to (cosmological) data-sets

Abstract: In the last couple of decades, algebraic topology has matured from a purely theoretical field to a one with strong applicability in various research domains. Combining Morse theory, Homology and Persistent homology, this has enabled a new branch in data analysis called topological data analysis (TDA). The central tenet is based on the identification of topological changes that occur in a manifold as a function of the excursion sets of the field. The topological changes are accounted for by tracking the creation and destrution of $p$-dimensional topological holes in a $d$-dimensional manifold. Intuitively, in spatial dimensions, restricting to 3D, these changes correspond to creation and destruction of connected components, loops/tunnels and voids.

Towards the end, I will present an example of application of the formalism to the Cosmic Microwave Backgroound (CMB) radiation. The CMB is the earliest visible light in the universe, and studying its properties has the potential to reveal information about the physical processes occuring in the nascent stages of the Universe.

Time/Place: 14h on 15th February, Salle Vitrine, Building Chappe, 6 avenue des arts, Villeurbanne.

(1) Prof. Sihem Mesnager from University of Paris VIII will present on the 28th January in our information theory seminar. Details below:

Speaker: Prof. Sihem Mesnager (University of Paris VIII)

Date: 28th January 2019, 14h.

Title: Some good linear codes from functions over finite fields and their applications

Abstract: This talk is divided in two parts: the first part is a contribution on the construction of new linear p-ary codes (from bent functions and plateaued functions in any characteristic) for secret sharing and two-party computation. The second part is a contribution on the construction of new locally recoverable codes (LRC codes) for storage. Below, more details.

Part 1: The first part of this talk is devoted to minimal  linear codes from bent/plateaued functions in any characteristic.  We will present two generic constructions  of linear codes involving special functions and investigate constructions of  good linear codes based on the generic constructions involving bent and plateaued functions over finite fields. More specifically, we present new minimal linear codes with few weights from weakly regular bent/plateaued  functions based on generic constructions.

Part 2: In 2014, a family of optimal linear locally recoverable codes (LRC codes) that attain the maximum possible distance (given code length, cardinality, and locality) is presented by Tamo and Barg. The key ingredient for constructing such optimal linear LRC codes is the so-called r-good polynomials, where r-1 is equal to the locality of the LRC code. However, given a prime p, known constructions of r-good polynomials on some extension field of GF p exist only for some special integers r, and the problem of constructing optimal LRC codes over small field for any given locality is still open. We present in the second part of this talk general methods of designing good polynomials, which lead to  new constructions of r-good polynomials. Such polynomials bring new constructions of optimal LRC codes.

(1) With Trung Duong and Marco Di Renzo, I have a new paper on molecular communications accepted for IEEE Access:

Malcolm Egan, Trung Q. Duong and Marco Di Renzo, “Biological circuits for detection in MoSK-based molecular communication,” accepted for publication in IEEE Access.

(1) Paulo Goncalves from INRIA and LIP in Lyon presented in our seminar on information theory and related topics:

Speaker: Dr Paulo Goncalves (INRIA, LIP)

Date14th November 2018.

Title: $L^{\gamma}$ Semi-Supervised Learning for Classification

Abstract: Graph-based semi-supervised learning are methods for classification that combine expert knowledge from (generally few) labelled samples with the structural organization (natural or inferred) of large datasets. PageRank is one famous algorithm that undergoes a standard random walk interpretation to explain how the a priori information diffuses over the entire graph. After extending PageRank to long-range diffusion processes, such as Levy flights, we will show how powers of the combinatorial Laplacian can improve classification performances in critical situations where standard SSL methods are known to behave poorly. Then, we will show that $L^{\gamma}$-SSL yields a pertinent proxy for the NP-hard problem of unsupervised normalized cut.

(2) On 21 November 2018 along with speakers including Petar Popovski, I will be lecturing in the 1st Winter School on Information Theory and Signal Processing for Internet of Things.

For work this lecture will build up to, see:

Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Ce Zheng, Mauro de Freitas and Jean-Marie Gorce, “Dynamic interference in uplink SCMA for large-scale wireless networks without coordination,” accepted for publication in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking

Mauro de Freitas, Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Alban Goupil, Gareth W. Peters and Nourddine Azzaoui, “Capacity bounds for additive symmetric alpha-stable noise channels”, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 63, no. 8, pp. 5115-5123, (2017).

(3) During 25th – 29th November I will be attending the IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW) in Guangzhou, China. My paper is joint work with Alex Dytso, Samir Perlaza, Vincent Poor and Shlomo Shamai:

Alex Dytso, Malcolm Egan, Samir M. Perlaza, H. Vincent Poor and Shlomo Shamai (Shitz), “Optimal Inputs for Some Classes of Degraded Wiretap Channels,” accepted for publication in IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW), (2018).

Slides are available here: [Slides]

(4) I have a new paper accepted in IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience with Valeria Loscri, Trung Duong and Marco Di Renzo:

Malcolm Egan, Valeria Loscri, Trung Q. Duong and Marco Di Renzo, “Strategies for coexistence in molecular communication,” accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience.

Malcolm Egan, Trang C. Mai, Trung Q. Duong and Marco Di Renzo, “Coexistence in Molecular Communications,” Nano Communication Networks, vol. 16, pp. 37-44, (2018).

(5) I have a new paper accepted in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems with Nir Oren and Michal Jakob:

Malcolm Egan, Nir Oren and Michal Jakob, “Hybrid mechanisms for on-demand transport,” accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Malcolm Egan, Jan Drchal, Jan Mrkos and Michal Jakob, “Towards data-driven on-demand transport”, accepted for publication in EAI Transactions on Industrial Networks and Intelligent Systems.

Malcolm Egan and Michal Jakob, “Market mechanism design for profitable on-demand transport services”, Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, vol. 89, pp. 178-195, 2016.

(1) From 1st – 6th October I will be attending Sequences and Their Application (SETA) held at the HKUST Institute for Advanced Study in Hong Kong. During the conference, I will be presenting my paper “On Regular Schemes and Tight Frames”. The abstract is below, the paper can be found here.

Title: On Regular Schemes and Tight Frames

Abstract: Finite frames are sequences of vectors in finite dimensional Hilbert spaces that play a key role in signal processing and coding theory. In this paper, we study the class of tight unit-norm frames for C d that also form regular schemes, called tight regular schemes (TRS). Many common frames that arise in applications such as equiangular tight frames and mutually unbiased bases fall in this class. We investigate characteristic properties of TRSs and prove that for many constructions, they are intimately connected to weighted 1-designs—arising from quadrature rules for integrals over spheres in Cd —with weights dependent on the Voronoi regions of each frame element. Aided by additional numerical evidence, we conjecture that all TRSs in fact satisfy this property.

(2) Next month from the 18-22 November 2018 along with speakers including Petar Popovski, I will be lecturing in the 1st Winter School on Information Theory and Signal Processing for Internet of Things. If you are a PhD student interested in these subjects, please see here for registration information.

(1) During 3rd – 4th September I have been visiting IRCICA Lille, hosted by Prof. Laurent Clavier and also discussing variance reduction methods for optimisation problems in information theory with Victor Elvira (IMT Lille Douai). I also dropped by at INRIA Lille to discuss ongoing projects on molecular communications with Valeria Loscri.

(2) On 12th September, Aline Roumy from INRIA Rennes will be presenting in our Information Theory Seminar in Lyon.

Title – Source coding under massive random access: theory and applications.

Abstract – In this presentation we will introduce a novel source coding problem allowing massive random access to large databases. Indeed, we consider a database that is so large that, to be stored on a single server, the data have to be compressed efficiently, meaning that the redundancy/correlation between the data have to be exploited. The dataset is then stored on a server and made available to users that may want to access only a subset of the data. Such a request for a subset of the data is indeedrandom, since the choice of the subset is user-dependent. Finally, massive requests are made, meaning that, upon request, the server can only perform low complexity operations (such as bit extraction but no decompression/compression). After describing the problem, information theoretical bounds of the source coding problem will be derived. Then two applications will be presented: Free-viewpoint Television (FTV) and massive requests to a database collecting data from a large-scale sensor network (such as Smart Cities).

Date – 12/09/2018.

(3) On 17th – 18th September, I am co-organizing a workshop on Molecular Communications in London, funded by the French Embassy in the UK. Speakers will include Weisi Guo, Adam Noel, Yansha Deng, Irene Otero-Muras, Bao Quoc Tang, Michael BarrosMauro Femminella, and myself. A summary of the workshop is available here.

(4) On 19th September, I will present a seminar in Kings College London, hosted by Yansha Deng. Below are the details:

Title –  Interference in Dynamic Wireless IoT Networks: Non-Gaussian Models and Information Theoretic Limits

Abstract – Two features of wireless IoT networks not present in cellular settings are: (i) small quantities of data transmission; and (ii) heterogeneous devices. The first feature implies that active transmitter sets in the network change rapidly and the second feature implies that the symbol duration for each device may vary throughout the network. A key consequence is that interference can be impulsive and not well modeled by Gaussian noise. Using a system setup based on a stochastic geometry model, we show that memoryless stationary additive isotropic alpha-stable noise channels arise in the point-to-point communication setting. Using this observation, we formally study the optimization problem for the capacity of this channel, establishing existence and uniqueness of optimal input distributions, and new achievable rates. We also briefly present some initial results on the impact of this new model for design and connections with recent results on the sensitivity of the capacity in non-Gaussian models.

Related Publications –

Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Ce Zheng, Mauro de Freitas and Jean-Marie Gorce, “Dynamic interference in uplink SCMA for large-scale wireless networks without coordination,” accepted for publication in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking.

Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Mauro de Freitas, Louis Dorville, Jean-Marie Gorce and Anne Savard, “Wireless communication in dynamic interference”, Proc. IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), (2017).

Mauro de Freitas, Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Alban Goupil, Gareth W. Peters and Nourddine Azzaoui, “Capacity bounds for additive symmetric alpha-stable noise channels”, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 63, no. 8, pp. 5115-5123, (2017).

Malcolm Egan, Mauro de Freitas, Laurent Clavier, Alban Goupil, Gareth W. Peters and Nourddine Azzaoui, “Achievable rates for additive isotropic alpha-stable noise channels”, In Proc. of the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, (2016).

Malcolm Egan, Samir M. Perlaza and Vyacheslav Kungurtsev, “Capacity Sensitivity in Additive Non-Gaussian Noise Channels”, accepted for publication in IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), (2017).

Malcolm Egan and Samir M. Perlaza, “Capacity approximation of continuous channels by discrete inputs”, in Proc. CISS 2018 (Invited Paper).

(1) With Alex Dytso, Samir Perlaza, Vincent Poor and Shlomo Shamai, we have a new paper accepted in the IEEE Information Theory Workshop:

Alex Dytso, Malcolm Egan, Samir M. Perlaza, H. Vincent Poor and Shlomo Shamai (Shitz), “Optimal Inputs for Some Classes of Degraded Wiretap Channels,” accepted for publication in IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW), (2018).

(2) With Trang Mai, Hien Quoc Ngo and Trung Duong, we have a new paper accepted in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technologies:

Tang C. Mai, Hien Quoc Ngo, Malcolm Egan and Trung Q. Duong, “Pilot power control for cell-free massive MIMO,” accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

(3) With Laurent Clavier, Ce Zheng, Mauro de Freitas and Jean-Marie Gorce, we have a new paper accepted in the EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking:

Malcolm Egan, Laurent Clavier, Ce Zheng, Mauro de Freitas and Jean-Marie Gorce, “Dynamic interference in uplink SCMA for large-scale wireless networks without coordination,” accepted for publication in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking

(1) On the 4th April, I am happy to announce that Guilia Cervia from ETIS, ENSEA, Cergy-Pontoise will be presenting in our seminar on information theory on the 4th July. Below is the information, details can also be found here:

Presenter: Giulia Cervia (ETIS)

Title: Strong coordination of signals and actions over noisy channels with two-sided state information

Abstract: In decentralized networks, communication devices must be able to cooperate, to take decisions in a distributed fashion and to reconfigure dynamically by reacting to changes in the environment. To achieve such behavior, efficient techniques to coordinate the actions of different nodes must be developed.
In this talk, we consider a two-node network with a noisy channel and two-sided state information, in which the input and output signals have to be coordinated with the source and its reconstruction.
We propose a joint source-channel coding scheme and derive inner and outer bounds for the strong coordination region. Moreover, we are able to give a complete characterization of the coordination region in some particular cases. Finally, we show that polar codes achieve the best known inner bound for the strong coordination region.

Date/Location: 4th July, 14h, TD-D Building Chappe, INSA Lyon.

(2) I am pleased to announce that the workshop on molecular communications I am co-organizing with Prof. Trung Duong (Queen’s University Belfast) will go ahead in September. A special thanks to the French Embassy in the UK for their support. More details to come.

(3) I am currently a guest editor for an IEEE Access special issue on molecular communication networks. You can find details for submission here.

(4) My paper on data driven on-demand transport with colleagues from the Czech Technical University in Prague is now published. You can find it here.

Malcolm Egan, Jan Drchal, Jan Mrkos and Michal Jakob, “Toward data-driven on-demand transport,” EAI Transactions on Industrial Networks and Intelligent Systems, vol. 18, no. 14, 2018.

(5) On 9th July Anne Savard from IMT Lille Douai in Lille will be presenting in our seminar on information theory.

Presenter: Anne Savard (IMT Lille Douai)

Title: IF Neuron: theoretical study and application to digital communication

Abstract: In the context of digital communication, one main mechanism proposed in the literature to overcome the large consumption of MAC layers when establishing communications is called wake-up radio: The main processor is only waking up when receiving a specific signal, as for instance the node ID in the network. Unfortunately, since most of the wake-up receivers rely on standard micro-controller, they suffer a large decrease of energy efficiency. Nevertheless, if the wake-up receivers was designed with neuromorphic circuits, one could achieve high energy efficiency for IoT and ad hoc networks.

The main question that is tackled in this presentation is whether a neuro-inspired detection scheme using an Integrate-and-Fire neuron is reliable enough when one needs to detect a weak signal surrounded by noise.

(6) On 12th July I will be presenting a seminar at IETR in Rennes, hosted by Philippe Mary.

Title: Communication in Open Systems: From the IoT to the Nanoscale

Abstract: The large-scale nature and varying levels of coordination in modern communication systems means that they no longer can be viewed as isolated. That is, control in the form of resource allocation and scheduling cannot be done, either in a centralised or decentralised fashion, for all devices in the network. Necessarily, for a given transmission the quality of communication is influenced by the behaviour of devices external to those devices directly involved in the transmission. In the context of the Internet of Things, such a setting arises due to the multiple operators and uncoordinated nature of supporting wireless communication networks. In this talk, I will discuss design in the presence of external wireless IoT devices, leveraging our recent work on information theoretic limits for these systems. I will also introduce emerging communication strategies for nanoscale networks, which should also be viewed as open systems. These nanoscale networks are subject not only to the influence of other communication networks but also external biological processes. To begin understanding the capabilities of these communication networks, information theoretic models and their limits will be developed via new analogies to open wireless communication systems.

(7) My paper in Sequences and Their Applications (SETA2018)

Malcolm Egan, “On regular schemes and tight frames,” Proc. Sequences and Their Applications (SETA2018), 2018

is available here.