Research

My research interests include information and coding theory, wireless communications and networking, cloud computing and big data, and very recently quantum communications and blockchain technology. In particular, I am interested in adapting new ideas and tools from information theory, coding theory, stochastic processes, and optimization to design better communication networks with a particular emphasis on quantum communications and blockchain technology.

Below are some of my major research projects (since I joined UBC Okanagan Campus).

• Stochastic Analysis for Blockchains: This project develops new stochastic analysis for next-generation blockchains with a particular focus on their incentive design and consensus algorithms. It applies stochastic processes to analyze the incentive design of two famous permissionless blockchains (Ethereum and Bitcoin-NG) as well as the throughout and delay performance of a well-known permissioned blockchain (the Libra/Diem blockchain).

• Systems Aspect of Blockchains: A primary goal of my research is to bridge the gap between theoretical advances and system implementations. This motivates my research group to conduct a measurement study for the Bitcoin lightning network, build a benchmark platform for next-generation permissioned blockchains, collaborate with Dapper Labs Inc. to develop their Flow blockchain platform, design and implement a novel sidechain solution to blockchain scaling, as well as provide guidelines for creating decentralized applications.

• Algebraic Information Theory for Wireless Relay Networks: This project extends my PhD dissertation, developing a foundational framework towards algebraic information theory for wireless relay networks. It introduces various algebraic tools to network information theory, allowing researchers to derive new achievable rate regions enabled by random structured codes (which are impossible with the conventional Shannon-style random i.i.d. codes).

• Coding Techniques for Quantum Communications: This project aims to develop novel coding techniques for emerging applications in quantum communications such as quantum fingerprinting and quantum key distribution. 

• Mean-Field Theory for Cloud Computing: This project applies mean-field theory to design and analyze high-performance load balancing algorithms for cloud computing.

Selected Publications

For a full list, please see my Google Scholar page or my UBC CV. The highly qualified personnel (HQP) under my supervision are shown in bold underline.

Journals

• Mufei Zhao, Renzhi Yuan, Chen Feng, Shuai Han, and Julian Cheng, “Optimally Displaced Threshold Detection for TPSK Modulated Coherent States,” accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Communications, 08/2023. 

• Mohammad Jalalzai, Jianyu Niu, Chen Feng, and Fangyu Gai, "Fast-HotStuff: A Fast and Robust BFT Protocol for Blockchains," accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 08/2023.

• Fangyu Gai, Jianyu Niu, Mohammad Jalalzai, Seyed Ali Tabatabaee, and Chen Feng, “A Secure Sidechain for Decentralized Trading in Internet of Things,” accepted by the IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 07/2023. 

• Son Hoang Dau, Ryan Gabrys, Yu-Chih Huang, Chen Feng, Quang-Hung Luu, Eidah Alzahrani, and Zahir Tari, “Optimizing the Transition Waste in Coded Elastic Computing,” accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 01/2023. 

• Jianyu Niu, Fangyu Gai, Runchao Han, Ren Zhang, Yinqian Zhang, and Chen Feng, “Crystal: Enhancing Blockchain Mining Transparency with Quorum Certificate,” accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 09/2022.

• Adriano Pastore, Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Unified Discretization Approach to Compute-Forward: From Discrete to Continuous Inputs,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 69, no. 1, pp. 1-46, January 2023. 

• Jianhang Tang, Mohammad M. Jalalzai, Chen Feng, Zehui Xiong, and Yang Zhang, “Latency-Aware Task Scheduling in Software-Defined Edge and Cloud Computing with Erasure-Coded Storage Systems,” accepted by the IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, 02/2022. 

• Mohammad M. Jalalzai, Chen Feng, Costas Busch, Golden G. Richard III, and Jianyu Niu, “The Hermes BFT for Blockchains,” IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 3971-3986, December 2022.

• Jianyu Niu, Ziyu Wang, Fangyu Gai, and Chen Feng, “Incentive Analysis of Bitcoin-NG, Revisited,” Performance Evaluation, vol. 144, 17 pages, December 2020. 

• Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Compute-Forward for DMCs: Simultaneous Decoding of Multiple Combinations,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 66, no. 10, pp. 6242-6255, October 2020.

• Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “A Joint Typicality Approach to Compute-Forward,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 64, no. 12, pp. 7657-7685, December 2018.

• Chunpu Wang, Chen Feng, and Julian Cheng, “Distributed Join-the-Idle-Queue for Low Latency Cloud Services,” IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 2309-2319, October 2018. 

• Wei Cai, Zehua Wang, Jason B. Ernst, Zhen Hong, Chen Feng, and Victor Leung, “Decentralized Applications: The Blockchain Empowered Software System,” IEEE Access, vol. 6, pp. 53019-53033, September 2018. 

• Mario Milicevic, Chen Feng, Lei Zhang, and P. Glenn Gulak, “Quasi-Cyclic Multi-Edge LDPC Codes for Long-Distance Quantum Cryptography,” Nature Partner Journal (npj) Quantum Information, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 21-29, April 2018. 

• Feihu Xu, Juan Miguel Arrazola, Kejin Wei, Wenyuan Wang, Pablo Palacios-Avila, Chen Feng, Shihan Sajeed, Norbert Lutkenhaus, and Hoi-Kwong Lo, “Experimental Quantum Fingerprinting with Weak Coherent Pulses,” Nature Communications, vol. 6, 9 pages, October 2015.

• Chen Feng, Roberto W. Nobrega, Frank R. Kschischang, and Danilo Silva, “Communication over Finite-Chain-Ring Matrix Channels,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 60, no. 10, pp. 5899-5917, October 2014. 

• Chen Feng, Danilo Silva, and Frank R. Kschischang, “An Algebraic Approach to Physical-Layer Network Coding,” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, vol. 59, no. 11, pp. 7576-7596, November 2013. 

Conference Proceedings (in the past four years)

• Adriano Pastore, Sung Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Distributed Lossy Computation with Structured Codes: From Discrete to Continuous Sources,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Taipei, Taiwan, June 2023.

• Quang Cao, Hong Yen Tran, Song Hoang Dau, Xun Yi, Emanuele Viterbo, Chen Feng, Yu-Chih Huang, Jingge Zhu, Stanislav Kruglik, and Han Mao Kiah, “Committed Private Information Retrieval,” in Proc. of European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), The Hague, The Netherlands, September 2023. 

• Fangyu Gai, Jianyu Niu, Ivan Beschastnikh, Chen Feng, and Sheng Wang, “Scaling Blockchain Consensus via a Robust Shared Mempool,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), Anaheim, California, USA, April 2023. 

• Jianyu Niu, Chunpu Wang, Chen Feng, and Hong Xu, “When Power-of-d Choices Meets Priority,” in Proc. of IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Quality of Service (IWQoS), Virtual Event, June 2022, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate: 24.3%) 

• Seyed Ali Tabatabaee, Charlene Nicer, Ivan Beschastnikh, and Chen Feng “One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch: Transaction DoS in MimbleWimble Blockchains,” in Prof. of IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC), Shanghai, China, May 2022, 9 pages. (Acceptance rate: 18.6%) 

• Ali Farahbakhsh and Chen Feng, “Opportunistic Routing in Quantum Networks,” in Prof. of IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Virtual Event, May 2022, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.9%) 

• Hanzheng Lyu, Jianyu Niu, Fangyu Gai, and Chen Feng, “Publish or Perish: Defending Withholding Attack in Dfinity Consensus,” in Proc. of the 17th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking (MSN), Virtual Event, December 2021, 8 pages. (Best Paper Award)

• Adriano Pastore, Sung Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “A Discretization Approach to Compute-Forward,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Virtual Event, July 2021, 5 pages. 

• Fangyu Gai, Ali Farahbakhsh, Jianyu Niu, Chen Feng, Ivan Beschastnikh, and Hao Duan, “Dissecting the Performance of Chained-BFT,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Virtual Event, July 2021, 12 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.8%) 

• Fangyu Gai, Jianyu Niu, Mohammad M. Jalalzai, Seyed Ali Tabatabaee, and Chen Feng “Cumulus: A Secure BFT-based Sidechain for Off-chain Scaling,” in Proc. of IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Quality of Service (IWQoS), (short paper), Virtual Event, June 2021, 6 pages. 

• Jianyu Niu, Fangyu Gai, Mohammad M. Jalalzai, and Chen Feng, “On the Performance of Pipelined HotStuff,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Vancouver, Canada, May 2021, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.9%) 

• Jianyu Niu, Ziyu Wang, Fangyu Gai, and Chen Feng, “Incentive Analysis of Bitcoin-NG, Revisited,” in Proc. of ACM International Symposium on Computer Performance Modeling, Measurements and Evaluation (Performance), Politecnico di Milano, Italy, November 2020, 10 pages.

• Chen Feng, Nan Li, M.H. Franco Wong, and Mingyue Zhang, “Initial Coin Offerings, Blockchain Technology, and White Paper Disclosures,” in Proc. of China International Conference in Finance (CICF), Guangzhou, China, July 2019, 38 pages. (Acceptance rate 18.1%) 

• Yuwei Guo, Jinfeng Tong, and Chen Feng, “A Measurement Study of Bitcoin Lightning Network,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Blockchain (Blockchain-2019), Atlanta, USA, July 2019, 10 pages. (Acceptance rate 15.9%) 

• Sung-Hoon Lim, Chen Feng, Adriano Pastore, Bobak Nazer, and Michael Gastpar, “Towards an Algebraic Network Information Theory: Distributed Lossy Computation of Linear Functions,” in Proc. of IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), Paris, France, July 2019, 5 pages. 

• Jianyu Niu and Chen Feng, “Selfish Mining in Ethereum,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Dallas, TX, USA, July 2019, 11 pages. (Acceptance rate 19.6%) 

Group Members

• Dr. Mohammad Jalalzai (Postdoc)

• Dr. Hassan Khodaiemehr (Postdoc)

• Dr. Reza Nourmohammadi (Postdoc)

• Dr. Yunshu Liu (Postdoc)

• Maryam Sadeghi (PhD)

• Hanzheng Lyu (PhD)

• Xiaoqing Wen (PhD)

• Nikhil Prakash (MS)

• Sara Gargoum (MS)

• Fatemeh Bagheriesfandabadi (MS)

• Amirhossein Khajehpourdezfoli (MS)

• Weixiao Wang (MS)

• Yuhao Huang (MS)

• Saeid Yazdinejad (MS)

• Zishuo Li (MS)

• Tianyu Shi (MS)

Alumni

• Dr. Mohamad-Jaafar Nehme  (Postdoc 2021 --> Huawei Canada)

• Abdelmalik Aljalai (PhD 2021 --> Postdoc at UBC)

• Jianyu Niu (PhD 2021 --> Research Assistant Professor at SUSTech)

• Fangyu Gai (PhD 2022 --> Senior Research Engineer at Babylon)

• Chunpu Wang (MS 2017 --> Unity Technologies)

• Renming Qi (MS 2018 --> ByteDance)

• Yonghui Lu (MS 2018 --> Meta)

• Junyuan Leng (MS 2019 --> Penny AI)

• Jinfeng Tong (MS 2019 --> Pudong Development Bank)

• Yiqun Duan (MS 2019 --> PhD at University of Technology Sydney)

• Yuwei Guo (MS 2019 --> Goldman Sachs)

• Seyed Ali Tabatabaee (MS 2021 --> PhD at UBC)

• Ali Farahbakhsh (MS 2022 --> PhD at Cornell)

• Niusha Moshrefi (MS 2022 --> PhD at Princeton, Co-Founder of TeleportDAO)

• Mahyar Daneshpajouh (MS 2022 --> Co-Founder of TeleportDAO)

• Cheng Guo (visiting PhD 2017 --> PengCheng Lab)

• Jianhang Tang (visiting PhD 2019 --> Yanshan University)

• Shao-Di Wang (visiting PhD 2022)