MESSAGE FROM THE TECHNICAL PROGRAM CHAIR 

On behalf of the Technical Program Committee, it gives me a great pleasure to welcome you to the 4^th IEEE-GCC Conference 2007 in Bahrain. This conference is a forum for professional engineers, scientists and academics engaged in research and development to convene and present their latest scholarly work and applications in industry.

This year, and in response to the feedback of previous industry participants, we have included a total of 6 Industrial Technology Applications and Industrial Technology sessions. This is in addition to 13 standard technical sessions on important topics including Electric Power and Control, Communications and Signal processing, Computer Engineering, Electronics, e-applications and Engineering Education.

In addition to the regular technical program, we are also privileged to have 16 distinguished keynote and invited speakers representing government, industry and academia. These speakers will address state of the art topics ranging from Renewable Energy, Next Generation/4G Technologies, Engineering Education, Semiconductors in the Era of Nanotechnology, Pulse Power Applications to Process Industry, WiMax Technology, Standards, and Future Wireless Communications. The technical program also includes 4 tutorials in the areas of nanotechnology, Data Fusion for Sensor Networks, WiMax technology and How to Specify, Design, Construct, Test, Install and Commission Power Management Systems.

From the government sector, we are honoured to have Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister for Economy & Planning - United Arab Emirates. 

From Academia, we have:

X      Prof. Skip Fletcher President of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in USA

X       Prof. Shesha Jayaram, Professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Waterloo in Canada

X      Prof. Ali Sayigh, Chairman of the World Renewable Energy Congress (WREC) and Director General of WREN, Brighton, UK.

X      Prof. Ross Murch, Professor of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

From Industry, we have:

X       Mr. Abdulrahman F. Al-Wuhaib, Business Line Head for Operations Services, Aramco, Saudi Arabia

X       Mr. Scott Wickware, Vice-President, Marketing & Strategy, Carrier Networks, Nortel

X       Mr. Rich Goldman, Vice-President, Strategic Market Development, Synopsys Inc., USA

X       Dr. Dominic Orr, President & CEO, Aruba Networks

X       Mr. Nadhmi Al-Nasr, Vice President, Aramco, Saudi arabia

X       Dr. Mostafa Al-Sayyed, General manager, BAPCO, Kingdom of Bahrain

X        Mr. Pierre TOURNASSOUD, Vice President Network & Technology Strategy, Alcatel-Lucent, France

X       Mr. Isam A. Al-Bayat, Vice President, Engineering Services, Aramco, Saudi Arabia .

X       Mr. Noel Kirkaldy, Wireless Broadband Director, Motorola Networks & Enterprise, Middle East and Afric, Motorola, UK

X       Dr Keith Dickerson, Head of Standards for BT Group, CTO Office, British Telecom, UK

X       Mr. Christian Sckerl, Vice President Corporate Standardization, Deutsche Telekom, Germany

The Technical Program Committee received a total of 233 papers and tutorials from 30 countries in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America. The review process involved 155 experts from all over the world.  Each paper was reviewed by two independent reviewers and the final decision was endorsed by the track chair. The acceptance rate is 54% which reflects the high standards of the conference. The accepted papers are divided into 13 parallel oral sessions, 6 industrial technology and applications sessions and 1 poster session. I am proud to say that a number of these papers are student papers.

Before I close, I would like to thank all the participating authors and the distinguished speakers for accepting our invitation and for being with us in this international event. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to the many people in the Technical Program Committee who worked diligently throughout the last 12 months. Particular thanks go to the 6 track chairs (Drs. Jayaram, Hamdi, El-Wakil, Iranmanesh, Zualkernan, Sait), tutorial chair Dr. Razouqi, Plenary sessions chair Dr. Lawati, Publications co-chairs Dr. El-Hag and Mr. Ajoor and Technical Program Committee vice chair Dr. Naamany. My sincere thanks also go to the international advisory committee and the panel of reviewers. Special thanks also go to our students who will do their best to help the delegates and authors to have smooth flow of events. I would also like to thank the conference chair Mr. Nabil Al-Dabal, members of the Steering Committee and my colleagues in the Organizing Committee chaired by Mr. Mohammad Dhamen for their continuous support. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has participated in any way to make this conference successful.

Finally, I wish you a fruitful conference and an enjoyable technical and social program.

Thank you

Professor Hasan Al-Nashash

Chair of the Technical program Committee

4^th IEEE GCC Conference

Bahrain, Nov. 11-14, 07