Merry Xmas and Happy New Year! NET group's Highlights of 2023

We wish everyone a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year 2024!

Founded in April 2007, the Computer Networks Group is devoted to cutting-edge leading research and education programs in the field of network architectures, protocols and applications. This report highlights ten most relevant and important research results and other achievements and activities performed by the Computer Networks Group in the year of 2023.
Compared to 2022, we had an increase in research visits, project meetings as well as conference attendance and services. We look forward to a more prosperous year in 2024.

10 Highlights of 2023

• Two new European Union projects, CODECO and COVER, got started in January 2023, along with new projects supported by DAAD-PPP Hong Kong and DAAD-PPP Australia. Collaborations with urban and university partners, as well as industry stakeholders, have fueled vibrant research activities in smart cities, smart health, and smart communication.
• NET members published a number of high-quallity papers such as the ones authored and presented by Tingting and Xiaoming etc at INFOCOM and AAAI. Zhengze, Xiaoming, and colaborators from Tsinghua and Beijing Foreign Studies University published a couple of papers in the field of educational big data. Together with Tsinghua University, Fudan University, and Beijing Institute of Technology etc NET group members published several other papers on virtualized network resource management, mobile big data and video analytics in top venues like USENIX ATC, INFOCOM, DASFAA, IEEE/ACM ToN, IEEE TPDS, TMC, TNSE, and TCSS.
• Xiaoming served on the IEEE Fellow Evaluation Committee, as well as on the panels for HK RGC, NSF, EU and other international academic evaluations.
• Xiaoming took the role of Program Chair of the International Conference of Network of the Future (NoF 2023), organized a special session on NoF for IEEE TNSM, and launched a  Workshop on Social Intelligence in 2023. Additionally, Xiaoming was invited to co-chair the TPC for ICDCS 2024 and delivered the welcome speech for ICDCS 2024 at ICDCS 2023, as well as keynotes at several international and national conferences. The Journal of Social Computing, where Xiaoming serves as founding co-Editor-in-Chief, has shown robust development, receiving widespread attention and recognition from the international research community. Tingting was invited to co-chair the AI track for ICDCS 2024.
• Tingting assumed the role of a young professorship at the University of Göttingen and took charge of NET's sustainable development and operations. She successfully secured funding through the Program for Project-Related Personnel Exchange (PPP) from DAAD in partnership with Macquarie University. Mr. Jin Xie and Ms. Wenfang Wu joined the NET group as visiting/joint PhD students.
• In 2023, significant strives were made in various international collaborations and academic engagements within NET. The Sino-German Institute of Social Computing held its plenary session and board meeting in July. Visits were made to the Center for Social Network Research and the Laboratory for Computational Social Science and National Governance at Tsinghua University, the Sino-German Institute of Social Computing at Nanjing University. In collaboration with Tsinghua University, the 2023 International Conference on Social Computing was organized in Beijing.
• Internationally renowned scholars including Jorg Liebeherr (Toronto), Xiangyang Li (USTC), Chenren Xu (PKU), Xiangyang Xue (Fudan), Shui Yu (UTS Sydney),Branka Vucetic (Sydney), Longfei Shangguan (Pittsburg), and Guoliang Xing (CUHK) visited NET, contributing to the university's rich academic environment.
• Yanlong, Tingting, Zhengze, and Xiaoming traveled to Munich and Athens for the EU CODECO project meetings. Wanghong, Zhengze, Yanlong, and Xiaoming participated in ACM MobiCom (Madrid). Tingting and Xiaoming attended INFOCOM (New Jersey) and AAAI (Washington, D.C.).
• Fabian and Xiaoming visited prominent Australian institutions, including the University of Melbourne, Victoria University, Deakin University, and the University of Sydney. Prof. Branka Vucetic visited NET, advancing our recent and upcoming research projects, including the upcoming Göttingen-Sydney Double PhD degree program.
• As part of the exchange programs, Tingting, Yanlong, and Xiaoming visited Hong Kong Baptist University and Tsinghua University, where bilateral collaborations were strengthened. Prof. Yupeng Li from Hong Kong Baptist University visited NET, fostering bilateral project cooperations.