Regional and Chapter News
USA, Canada and Latin America (Regions 1-6, 7 & 9)
ED Washington/Northern Virginia
- by Michael Hurt
The Washington/Northern Virginia EDS Chapter held two meetings
during the months of April and May at George Mason University.
The April meeting was a talk on Spin Based Quantum Computers by
Dr. Supriyo Bandyopadhyay an EDS Distinguished Lecturer, of Virginia
Commonwealth University. Quantum computers promise vastly enhanced
computational prowess and an uncanny ability to solve intractable
problems. More importantly, a quantum computer can solve problems
much more efficiently than a classical computer.
Dr. Bandyopadhyay presented a stimulating lecture with a focus
on the solid state aspects of the world of quantum computers,
including example images and lab results of quantum devices.
In May, Dr. Dimitris E. Ioannou of George Mason University presented
an overview of Fully Depleted SOI MOSFETs. Because of the inherent
electrostatic coupling of the front and back channel, the Fully
Depleted (FD) SOI MOSFET was thought to be superior to both Partially
Depleted (PD) SOI and bulk MOSFETs. But a closer look at the device
physics revealed that this superiority was diminished in the deep
submicron range. Hence, there is currently a renewed interest
on FD-SOI, because of its potential for continued scalability
beyond this limit. Dr. Ioannou reviewed the latest results from
the literature, concerning the performance and reliability of
extremely scaled FD transistors, and offered predictions on where
future work should be directed.
This chapter is planning a series of lectures on nanotechnology
for the Fall term.
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Dr. S. Bandyopadhay at the Chapter Meeting.
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ED/CPMT Orlando
- by Anwar Sadat
The Electron Devices/Component Packaging & Manufacturing Society
Orlando Chapter held a meeting on June 18, 2003 at the University
of Central Florida campus. Dr. Huikai Xie from the University
of Florida delivered a talk on "CMOS-MEMS: Process, Design
and Applications". In his talk, Dr. Xie first introduced
a bulk silicon based CMOS-MEMS process and then he focused on
two applications: inertial sensors and micro mirrors. Based on
the CMOS-MEMS process, he introduced a unique technique that they
have developed to realize three-dimensional motion sensing and
actuation that is essential to realize integrated inertial measurement
units (IMUs) for navigation, guidance and control of vehicles,
spacecrafts and missiles. He then briefly introduced a few example
devices including an accelerometer and a gyroscope. He also talked
about the micro mirrors, which use the same technique, and their
applications in optical coherence tomographic (OCT) imaging. His
group assembled the first ever-micro mirror-based endoscopic OCT
imaging system for in vivo imaging of biological tissue. Preliminary
experiments show very promising resolution and scanning speed.
This work opens the possibility to make compact, high-performance
and low-cost OCT catheters and endoscopes for future clinical
applications by using MEMS technology. Compatibility of MEMS fabrication
with mainstream CMOS technologies not only provides high sensitivity,
on-chip "smart" conditioning circuitry and low cost,
but also has such advantages as scalability, multi-vendor accessibility
and short design cycles. The lecture took about an hour and another
15 minutes for questions and answers. There were around 30 attendees
in the meeting, mostly students and faculty from electrical &
computer engineering departments and School of Optics (CREOL).
For additional information, contact Anwar Sadat at anwarsadat@ieee.org.
- Murty Polavarapu, Editor
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Dr. Dimitrus Loannou at the Chapter Meeting.
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EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST &
AFRICA (REGION 8)
Message from the Past Novosibirsk
State Technical University Student Branch Counselor
- by Alexander V. Gridchin
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Alexander V. Gridchin
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I have been involved in IEEE EDS activities since 1998 as one of the organizers of the IEEE Novosibirsk State Technical University Student Branch. Since the date of establishing the student branch I was serving as a Counselor. It was a time of good practice for me. I was studying to organize the meeting, to invite lecturers, to serve members via e-mail, to plan the Student Branch activities, to write reports, to renew IEEE memberships, to subscribe to IEEE journals. One of most difficult problems for me as Counselor was forming the team and preparing the person who can replace me in the future. Now, four years later, I can tell you that this problem is successfully solved. I'm very appreciative to all of my colleagues who have made me an unprecedented assistance during the period of last four years like Mr. William F. Van Der Vort, Prof. Cary Yang, Prof. Hiroshi Iwai, Prof. Rolf Remshardt, Prof. Jan Van Der Spiegel and many other people. Now I want to introduce you to our new Student Branch Counselor, Mr. Vladimir A. Kolchuzhin. During the last two years he was successfully serving the IEEE Novosibirsk State Technical University (NSTU) Student Branch as a Branch Chair.
ED Novosibirsk State Technical
University Student Branch
- by Vladimir A. Kolchuzhin
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Vladimir A. Kolchuzhin
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Our IEEE EDS Student Branch Chapter in the NSTU
was founded in 1999, and now is a good time to summarize our working
activity. As one of first IEEE EDS Student Branch Chapters in
Russia, we were faced with a lot of a financial and organization
problems during the process of establishing our branch. However,
due to support from the Dean of Faculty of Radio Engineering,
Electronics and Physics, Dr. Victor A. Gridchin, and to the outstanding
enthusiasm from the students we solved most of these problems.
Now that our EDS Student branch chapter is firmly established,
all of our students can benefit from EDS membership. They read
EDS publications, like IEEE Electron Device Letters, IEEE Transactions
on Electron Devices, and IEEE Transactions on Electronics Packaging
Manufacturing, which are an indispensable source of knowledge
in this field. Most of our students take part in EDS sponsored/co-sponsored
international conferences, like IEEE Sensors, Euro sensors, APEIE
and KORUS. As a result, an unprecedented increase of student scientific
publications takes place. Now our student members send their papers
to 3-5 international conferences and take part in these meetings
each year. There is a good trend among our student members. After
finishing their education most of our IEEE student members are
continuing their research activity at the University as research
assistants or Ph.D. students and keeping or upgrading their IEEE
membership.
At the beginning of the development of our Student Branch, we
decided to establish our own workshop in order to give our students
a possibility to publish their results in English in IEEE-related
proceedings. So we established an annual "Electron Devices
and Materials" meeting. This meeting is not only a workshop,
which participants from all ex-USSR territory and other countries
attend, but also includes tutorials where well known scientists
from Germany, USA and South Korea report about the most interesting
trends in the field of electron devices.
Among our activities, the most important one is the student scientific
research. Due to support given by IEEE EDS, we started some projects
in the field of simulation and characterization of microsystem
devices. All of our EDS members are involved in realizing this
project as members of research teams, whose efforts are concentrated
on simulation and development of the technological process for
the microsystem devices.
Now, with the help of the newly established Siberian section,
we plan to increase our efforts for involving new members and
creating new student scientific teams in the EDS field of interests.
- Alexander V. Gridchin, Editor
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Team of EDS NSTU Student Branch Chapter,
from left to right: Mr. Nicolay M. Shmakov, Mr. Vladimir
A. Kolchuzhin, Mr. Alexey V. Shaporin, Mr Dimitry V. Brunev
and others (Collage by Mr. Alexey V. Shaporin)
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ED Poland
- by Andrzej Napieralski
The ED Poland Chapter sponsored two International Conferences.
The first one, "The 6th Symposium Diagnostics and Yield:
Advanced Silicon Devices and Technologies for ULSI Era,"
was held June 22-25, 2003 in Warsaw, Poland. A number of invited
speakers (including such leading scientists as Siegfried Selberherr
- author of MINIMOS) from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan,
Norway, United Kingdom, U.S.A., Ukraine and Poland presented papers
on the most important issues concerning semiconductor technology,
device performance, modeling and characterization. A lot of attention
was paid to the future of device scaling and the resulting technological
difficulties. Advantages of new materials, such as SOI, SiGe,
SiGeC and strained silicon, as well as the difficulties associated
with the use of these materials, were another important topic.
Several papers were devoted to modeling issues encountered in
SiGe-based devices, power devices, short-channel MOSFETs and devices
fabricated in very thin semiconductor layers. The subject of ultra
thin SiO2 and high-k dielectrics was also covered. Three special
sessions sponsored by NEXUS were devoted to MEMS. A special IEEE
meeting was devoted to the discussion of future directions of
the NEXUS program.
The Symposium retained its traditional character of an extensive
tutorial, which included the presentation of 25 invited papers
and 20 posters. A considerable number of graduate and Ph.D. students
participated in the Symposium. Conference materials will be published
in the Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology.
The second one: "The 10th Jubilee International Conference:
"MIXED DESIGN OF INTEGRATED CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS" -
MIXDES'2003" was held June 26-28, 2003 in Lodz, Poland. During
the last 10 years, MIXDES has been growing to become one of the
largest microelectronics conferences in Central and Eastern Europe.
More than 150 submitted articles were reviewed by the Program
Committee to put together a high quality technical program of
131 papers from 28 countries organized in oral and poster presentations.
During the conference, five invited papers were presented by internationally
recognized distinguished speakers: Daniel Foty from Gilgamesh
Associates, USA, Krzysztof Iniewski from PMC Sierra Inc., Canada,
Andreas Wild (replaced by Wladyslaw Grabinski) and Charles Cordonnier
from Motorola, and Hisayo Sasaki Momose from Toshiba Corp., Japan.
Two special sessions were organized: "Compact Modeling and
its Standardization", by Dr. Wladyslaw Grabinski from Motorola
Modeling Centre in Geneva and "Optoelectronics and Photonics"
organized by Dr. Marek Turowski from CFD Research Corporation
in Huntsville USA.
In addition to the regular program, one course and three tutorials
were organized as follows: Tutorial - "IC Design for Manufacturability"
by Prof. Wieslaw Kuzmicz from IMiO Warsaw University of Technology;
Tutorial - "Design and Modeling of MEMS Sensor and Actuators";
Course - "Advanced Thermal Measurement Techniques" by
Department of Microelectronics and Computer Science Technical
University of Lodz (DMCS TUL); and Tutorial - "Half Day on
Thermal Measurement Techniques" by DMCS TUL, Lviv Politechnic,
Ukraine and Budapest University of Technology. All these events
were organized in the frame of FP5 European project REASON: "Research
and Training Action for System on Chip Design". During MIXDES,
the plenary meeting of FP5 European project SEWING: "System
for European Water Monitoring" coordinated by Prof. Andrzej
Filipkowski from ISE Warsaw University of Technology in Poland
was organized. Two new members joined the International Program
Committee: Dr. H. Wang from Southern Illinois University and Dr.
Mariusz Zubert from Technical University of Lódz. Information
about next year's conference is posted online at http://www.mixdes.org.
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Invited speaker Hisayo Sasaki Momose receiving
the flowers from the MIXDES Session Chairman, Prof. Andrzej
Jakubowski.
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ED/SSC Yugoslavia
- by Tatjana Pesic
The ED/SSC Yugoslavia Chapter organized a session on Microelectronics
and Optoelectronics at the 47th Conference on Electronics, Telecommunications,
Computers, Automation and Nuclear Engineering (ETRAN 2003), held
8-13 June in Herceg Novi, Montenegro. A total of 48 papers were
presented at this session, including invited papers entitled "Bipolar
Transistor Compact Modeling" (by Dr. Slobodan Mijalkovic,
DELFT University of Technology, Netherlands) and "Silicon
Photoniocs Circuits" (by Prof. Graham Reed, University of
Surrey, UK). Two Best Student Paper awards were presented to Ms.
Elva Jovanovic, University of Nis, for the contribution entitled
"Simulation of Vertical Hall Device in High-Voltage CMOS
Technology", and to Ms. Ivana Jokic, IHTM Belgrade, for the
contribution entitled "Determination of the Desorption Energy
that Characterizes the Adsorption-Desorption Process in MEMS and
NEMS Sensors". The session was attended by more than 60 participants,
most of them being members of IEEE EDS and SSCS.
- Andrzej Napieralski, Editor
MTT/ED/AP/LEO UK&RI
- by Terry Oxley
The three major annual events established/sponsored by the Chapter
and planned for 2003 are summarized below (the first two events
fall within the times of writing this report and newsletter publication).
The 4th IEEE/IEE European MIDAS (Mm-wave, microwave and rf Integrated
circuit Design And Simulation) Workshop titled "Photonic
ICs for Cost Efficient Optical Networks and Military Systems"
is planned for the 7th and 8th of July 2003 at The University
of Surrey, Guildford. The focus on microwave, millimetre-wave
and RF integrated circuits combined in systems together with opto-electronics
circuits, best described as `Photonic Solutions' to commercial
and military systems and applications, is aimed to facilitate
the design of photonic integrated circuits by increasing the understanding
and cross fertilization between the two traditional expertise
areas of microwave and opto-electronic circuit design. The technical
program combining four sessions covers the topics of Optical Communications,
Microwave Design, Advanced Techniques for Optical Networks and
Photonic ICs for Military Applications, with all speakers being
invited acknowledged leaders in the field. The schedule for the
workshop dinner in the evening of the first day includes an invited
lecture on Silicon-Based Optoelectronics.
The 8th IEEE High Frequency Postgraduate Student Colloquium, aimed
to provide an opportunity for student researchers to present their
work and gain experience in the art of professional presentation,
is planned for the 8th and 9th of September 2003 at Queens University,
Belfast. The technical program included six oral sessions plus
poster presentations, with the oral sessions covering the topics
of Wave Propagation, Dielectric Characterisation, Non-linear Devices,
Guided Propagation, Passive Devices and Antennas. The evening
dinner on the first day is followed by an Invited Talk. Prize
presentations for best oral and poster papers are included in
the closing session.
The 11th IEEE International EDMO (Electron Devices for Microwave
and Optoelectronic Applications) Symposium, aimed at providing
a forum for microwave and optoelectronic device designers, technologists
and end-users, to discuss advances in device performance and system
requirements, is planned for the first time in the USA. The EDMO
Symposium, in its eleventh consecutive year, will take place 17-18
November 2003 at Central University of Florida, USA. For more
details, please see the EDMO website www.edmo-symposium.org,
or for the local organizer http://www.ucf.edu).
Congratulations to David Rhodes of Filtronics Ltd UK, the 2003
recipient of the MTT-S Microwave Career Award.
For further information on Chapter news, please contact the Chapter
Chairman: Ali A Rezazadeh, Professor of Microwave Engineering,
Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of
Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), P.O. Box
88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 161 200 4708 (Sec.4801).
E-Mail: a.rezazadeh@umist.ac.uk.
- Gady Golan, Editor
AP/ED Bombay
-by Prof. M.B. Patil
Prof Nicholas Shuley, University of Queensland gave a talk on
"Fast approximation of Green's functions in MPIE formulations
for large antennas and scatterers," on April 8, 2003. The
talk led to questions from the audience and technical discussion.
The IEEE AP/ED Bombay Chapter co-sponsored a two-day workshop
on VLSI for faculty members in engineering colleges at the PICT
School of Information Technology and Management, Pune on May 6
and 7, 2003. The objective of the workshop was to create awareness
among faculty members about VLSI design and technology, future
prospects of VLSI, and the manpower needs of industry in the VLSI
area. Twenty faculty members attended the program and benefited
enormously from the lectures and the laboratory sessions organized
as a part of the program.
On May 12, 2003, Prof. K. N. Bhat, Indian Institute of Technology,
Madras, talked on "Polysilicon piezoresistive pressure sensors."
He described the challenges involved in the fabrication of the
sensors, innovative ways to address the problems, and characterization
of the fabricated devices.
For more information, please contact Prof. MB Patil, Electrical
Engineering Department, IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India,
Email: mbpatil@ee.iitb.ac.in.
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Dr. Rajendra Datar, Cirrus logic, Pune,
speaking at the VLSI Workshop organized in Pune on May 6-7,
2003
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ED/MTT India
-by Dr. K.S. Chari
The Chapter Chair addressed a gathering of under- and postgraduate
students at the Department of Information Technology Delhi on
"Simulation and Characterization Issues" on 15 April.
Matters related to evolution of simulation as a contemporary tool
for device design, structure of simulator, model validation, benchmarking
and testing issues were touched upon. The second talk by Dr S.
Ahmed on "Numerical Techniques for Simulation, Optimization
and Modeling of Devices". This talk covered the aspects of
popular numerical approaches for simulation, role of optimizers
in simulation, algorithms for optimization, correlation of simulator
data with experimental data etc. The Chapter Chair gave a talk
on "Intellectual Property issues in Semiconductor Lay out
Design and Indian efforts" on 12th June at a meeting of Semiconductor
Industry at Bangalore. The meeting was held in association with
the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology. Several
issues related to the Semiconductor Topography, Registrations
of the IPR as enablers of innovation, enforcement issues, infringement
matters, approaches for detection of IC layout duplication, etc.,
were discussed. The fourth talk was delivered by the Chapter Chair
at Delhi to a gathering of LINUX user and developer groups at
the Department of Information Technology on 22nd June. The fifth
talk held on 25th June was an invited lecture on "Advanced
Diagnostic Techniques for Nondestructive Characterization and
Failure Analysis of IC" delivered by Mr Tan Ah Young from
NPTest Technologies Pte Ltd. (Singapore). Topics covered included
analysis of problematic parts of IC, case studies on 0.18 and
0.13 micron, evolution of probing methods, role of detectors in
the resolution and analysis capabilities, design debug experiences
with CMOS devices technology issues and results of failure analysis
using optical technologies. These meetings were attended by about
30-40 participants from industry, academia and students.
The Chapter, in association with the Electronics Science Department
of Kurukshetra University, organized a two day National Level
Symposium on Electronics Technology (NASET 2003) during March,
2003. Details of the events were reported in the last Newsletter.
A group photograph of a section of the attendees to the event
is attached.
For more information, please contact Dr. K.S. Chari, Director,
Microelectronics & Photonics Division, Department of Electronics,
C.G.O. Complex, New Delhi, India, Tel: 91-11-4361464; Fax: 91-11-4363082;
email: chari@mit.gov.in.
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Section of Attendees of NASET '2003
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ED/SSC Bangalore
-by Prof. Navakanta Bhat
A technical seminar was held on 24 April in collaboration with
the National Semiconductor (Bangalore). Dr. Nikhil Balaram, CTO
Displays group, National Semiconductor, USA delivered the seminar
on "Display Electronics for Digital Television". He
presented the typical system level architecture of digital TV/monitor
and elaborated on the design issues of individual building blocks.
The seminar was attended by about 150 people, mostly from industry.
A three day workshop on VLSI & MEMS was organized in Mysore
1-3 May with the IEEE student branch of the Sri Jayachamarajendra
College of Engineering (SJCE), Mysore. The audience for the workshop
included postgraduate students and faculty from different engineering
colleges. Dr. C.P. Ravikumar from Texas Instruments, India delivered
a seminar on Introduction to VLSI, CAD tools, VLSI Architectures
and applications. Dr. P.R. Suresh from Texas Instruments, India
delivered a seminar on Layout Verification. Dr. Navakanta Bhat
from Indian Institute of Science delivered seminars on Subthreshold
MOS circuit design and RF circuit design and MEMS. Dr. D.V. Poornaiah
from Indian Telephone Industries delivered seminar on VLSI for
wireless communication.
Dr. Chandu Visweswaraiah from IBM T.J. Watson research lab presented
a technical talk titled "Death, Taxes and Failing chips"
on 18th June at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The
theme of his talk was the fact that the need to deal with variability
in state-of-the-art chip design is as inevitable as death and
taxes. He proposed the need for "probabilistic circuit design"
as a new paradigm and presented the top 10 items which form the
wish list for such a paradigm. The talk was very well received
with an audience of 140 people.
For more information, please contact Prof. Dr. Navakanta Bhat,
email: navakant@ece.iisc.ernet.in.
- Wee Kiong Choi, Editor
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The inauguaration of 3 day workshop on
VLSI and MEMS at SJCE, Mysore
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ED Kansai
- by Hiroyuki Sakai
The executive committee meeting for the "2003 International
Meeting for Future Electron Devices, Kansai (2003 IMFEDK)"
was held at the Hotel Granvia Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan on March 31,
2003. Professor Yoshio Nishi, General Chair of the Conference,
came across the ocean to participate in this meeting from Stanford
University. Detailed issues including the paper selection, presentation
manners, conference operations, advertisements, etc., are discussed
and decided. The conference will be held at Osaka University Convention
Center, Osaka, Japan July 16-18, 2003.
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The executive committee meeting for 2003
IMFEDK
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ED Japan
- by Naoki Yokoyama
On January 20 2003, a Japan Chapter officer's meeting was held
in Tokyo. The activities and budget for 2002 and 2003 were discussed
with members of the IEEE Japan Council. The Japan Chapter, technically
supported more than 40 workshops in 2002 with other societies,
including the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication
Engineering Japan, Japan Applied Physics Society, and the Institute
of Electrical Engineering of Japan. The chapter established a
Japan Chapter Student Award selecting 5 student winners in 2002.
The Chapter Operating Committee of the Japan Council financially
supported this award. The number of EDS members in the Japan Chapter
is more than 1,000, with 53 Fellows and 77 senior members. The
number of senior members is slightly increasing. The plans for
the 2003 Japan Chapter Student Award and the renewal of Japan
Chapter web page were approved. The Chair proposed to have a DL
meeting in the Tokyo area in July at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
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Japan Chapter Officers and executiver
members in Japan Council
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ED/SSC Chapter, Seoul
- by Taegeun Park
As a part of the annual support of the conferences, the ED/SSC
Seoul Chapter sponsored the VLSI and CAD Conference, held at Ewha
Women's University, Suwon, Korea on May 10, 2003. The number of
attendees was about 150. The Chapter sponsored $300 for the best
paper awards. The Seoul Chapter annually presents a "Best
Student Paper Award" to recognize outstanding student authors
from the local area (Seoul, Korea), who published high quality
papers in the IEEE EDS and SSCS journals. For articles included
in the 2003 journals, two student authors (one of each from EDS
and SSCS) will be selected for the prize. A $200 cash prize will
be awarded with the prize being presented at the SOC Design conference
being held in October 2003. The IEEE Seoul Chapter has held a
chapter meeting on a bimonthly basis. In 2003, the Seoul Chapter
plans to invite two IEEE Distinguished Lecturers from EDS and
SSCS and sponsor several local technical conferences (IEEK CAD
and VLSI Conference, IEEK Circuits and Systems Conference, and
SOC Design conference). We also made an effort on the membership
promotion by opening the membership development desk at local
meetings.
- Hisayo S. Momose, Editor
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ED/SSC Seoul Chapter meeting
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