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The IEEE NPSS AdCom
met on 23 October 2004 at the Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome, Italy
for our second non-North American meeting. It was exciting to be
able to see some of the second NSS/MIC conference held outside North
America and to be amazed at the large attendance and dynamic program
organized for this conference.
As this was our Annual meeting, it was a time when changes were
announced, and I join with Bill Moses in extending thanks to the
outgoing Class of 2004 AdCom members Tom Lewellen, Mark Rader, Erik
Heijne, and Mike Unterweger and technical committee chairs Christian
Boulin, Bruce Brown and Bob Reinovsky for four years each of dedicated
service. I join in Bill’s delight with the election of Jane
Lehr, just at the end of her first year of AdCom service, as our
new Vice President, from a strong pool of vice-presidential candidates.
Ed Lampo, our Treasurer, reported that the conferences are, overall,
doing well financially, but as always, late closings have to be
watched. We also had an unbudgeted expense of $50,000 in 2004 to
buy computer equipment and projectors that can be used by our conferences
and that will help reduce some of the very high rental charges.
Anyone who is interested should contact Tony Lavietes at lavietes1@llnl.gov.
TNS is somewhat behind schedule in 2004.
Bill Moses thanked two ad hoc committees, one assessing TNS and
the other looking at membership issues, for their work. He also
announced that Anthony (Tony) Lavietes of Livermore National Laboratory
has been appointed Assistant Treasurer to give Ed Lampo some help.
Tony will assume principal responsibility for conference budgets
and finance and will provide overall backup for Ed as needed. Carolyn
Hoffman (see letter below) had also sent thanks to Bill for all
the remembrances of Ed and for making it possible for her to attend
the NSS/MIC this year.
Bill and others will attend the IEEE TAB meetings in November. Although
IEEE is running in the red this year, we anticipate that our treasury
will not be as severely impacted as it has been in past years. An
IEEE TAB strategy workshop discussed membership, publications and
open access, the latter of which Bill has discussed in detail in
his report above. This may have a big impact on our income stream,
but it will be a year or two until that is determined. Another issue
that arose is that of hotel contracts. These are becoming more complex,
negotiating favorable conditions is getting harder and, with the
number of conferences and smaller workshops and other meetings organized
by IEEE (over 300 per year) there is a feeling that the Institute
is not using its buying power to best advantage. There is also a
big difference in how US conferences and international conferences
are managed. Perhaps it is time for IEEE to develop its own blanket
hotel contract for all IEEE conferences. On the good news side,
NPSS conferences have been growing, which has not been true for
all IEEE societies.
Our Finance chair and Division IV Director, Harold Flescher, also
discussed IEEE finances, income streams, and entities without income
streams that use resources. Of this amount, HQ requires only about
$25m, or 12% of income. It is a lean organization, thanks to Dan
Senese, the retiring manager. Society and publications costs for
infrastructure have to be paid for and so do such things as salary
increases, motivational bonuses, and things like the huge increase
in the cost of paper. Hal notes that Open Access and membership
issues will be important for the next several years. It is, with
publishing changes, becoming increasingly hard to explain the value
of the $135 membership dues.
One issue brought up in discussion was that of requiring IEEE membership
to allow paper presentation and publication at our conferences and
in our journals. Other societies do have such policies, and perhaps
TAB should evaluate this.
Much detail that was presented in the Technical Committee reports
can be seen below in the reports from many of the Technical Committees,
so will not be repeated here. There is also a lot of information
on the IEEE NPSS web site related to the conferences. One item of
note is that Particle Accelerator Science and Technology is considering
the introduction of short courses with their 2007 conference that
will be held in Albuquerque contiguous to the joint Plasma Sciences/Pulsed
Power conference. Both will be held in the same venue with a weekend
between.
Radiation Effects noted a large drop in international attendance
at their 2004 conference. It is unclear whether this was due to
visa issues or another factor, but visas are definitely harder to
get and take more time, so it is important to get invitation letters
out early and to urge people from countries where visas are required,
to send in their requests early. Make sure you know who the applicants
are and be very clear about issues of support!
Erik Heijne reported that the Transnational Committee still needs
to be expanded, and that it should work more vigorously with the
Membership committee to increase international membership. Erik
also discussed the visa issues in greater detail, including problems
that people with valid visas have experienced in returning to the
US from visits abroad. Several technical societies are looking into
this issue.
The Conference Information and Promotion Committee (CIP), formed
for the 2000 NSS/MIC in Lyon, is an offshoot of the Transnational
Committee and has been very active in promoting NPSS conferences
through posters, and information table at meetings, preparing participant
packages, putting articles in non-NPSS journals, advertising, and
so on. They are a very energetic, active group who have focused
on NSS/MIC and the Real Time conference, but they just might be
willing to help with other conferences.
For NPSS Conference chairs, it was again emphasized that one must
be familiar with both the IEEE conference planning manual and the
supplemental NPSS documents as there are very specific details about
Executive Committees, publicity requirements, etc. If you are a
conference chair and haven’t received these documents or the
links to them, contact Ray Larsen (Larsen@slac.stanford.edu) who
will assist you. Conference-related organizational questions should
also be addressed to Ray.
Igor Alexeff noted that getting nominations for the Society awards
is hard work. Remember to send Igor (alexeff@utk.edu) nominations
for the Merit, Shea and Graduate Scholar awards. See the NPSS web
site for details http:// ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/awards.htm. The submittal
deadline is May 15th and we have many colleagues deserving of these,
technical committee, and IEEE awards.
Vern Price again told us the NPSS membership, although down slightly,
has been fairly constant over the last 20 years, but the membership
“churn” or turnover is high. Generally, those who make
it through the first few years stay for the long haul.
Overall, IEEE membership is down about 6% in the last year. It is
expected that by 2015 or slightly thereafter, North Americans will
be 50% or less of total IEEE membership. Can you tell us why IEEE
NPSS is important to you? Send me a note. We’d like to know.
By the time you receive this, the deadline for Fellow nominations
will be past. However, it is none too early to think about 2006
nominations as preparation of the application takes some time. If
you know of anyone who should be a Fellow, contact either Peter
Winokur or Igor Alexeff to help you get the process started. Fellow
candidates must be senior members of IEEE, should be nominated by
another senior member, and will need letters of recommendation from
a minimum of six Fellows.
This year, only TNS managed to stay close enough to its projected
page count that it received a bonus from IEEE Publications. We hope
that TPS, with 8 special issues in 2005, will again be in the bonus-receiving
column. We have also had a tough year for TNS in losing special
edition editors. John Valentine resigned and Ed Hoffman passed away.
Paul Kinahan deserves a large vote of thanks for finishing the 2003
MIC papers and for launching the 2004 effort, and John deserves
equal thanks for hanging on when he was eager to step aside from
his editorial duties. After much searching, and past the AdCom meeting,
new editors have been found and a new editorial structure has been
proposed for our journals, which is being implemented.
For anyone interested in submitting material to the Newsletter,
the deadlines are April 15 for the June issue, and July 25 for the
September issue. We are especially looking for articles about the
technical work our members do.
Peter Clout, chair of the Communications Committee, reported that
a new brochure will be released in 2005. We need to learn to take
advantage of advertising opportunities, such as the 2007 confluence
of three of our conferences, and we should issue press releases
about our awards. If you need brochures for one of our conferences,
or posters, or to use the booth, contact Peter directly (clout@vista-control.com)
to request these items.
At present, according to Ron Keyser, chair of our Standards Committee,,
there are 10 to 12 NPSS standards that must be reaffirmed or updated.
A core group of people who are both NPSS and Standards Committee
members are needed for the balloting process. Contact Ron (Ron.Keyser@ortec-online.com)
if this is an activity that interests you. What about the 40-year-old
NIM standard? Is anyone out there still interested in it? Let Ron
know.
Hal Flescher who also wears the hat of RADECS liaison, reported
that there will be a RADECS workshop in the south of France in 2005,
and that the 2006 meeting will be in either Greece or Sweden.
AdCom actions:
A motion was passed to allow the presentation of up to two student
paper awards and two honorable mention certificates at each NPSS
conference at the conference committee’s discretion. Details
have been submitted to TABARC for consideration and it is hoped
that before you receive this, these new awards will have been sanctioned.
There were three motions related to publications:
1. AdCom endorses the proposed Editorial structure for TNS
with an Editor-in-Chief, Senior Editors, and Associate Editors,
for the technical areas of Radiation Instrumentation, Nuclear Medical
and Imaging Sciences, Radiation Effects, and Real-Time Computer
Applications, and authorizes the Editor-in-Chief of TNS to move
forward with this structure.
This motion was moved, seconded and passed. To implement this, a
change in the Constitution and Bylaws will be required.
2. AdCom endorses the elimination of the distinction in the
editorial process between manuscripts originating from conferences
and those submitted as “regular contributions.” In general,
the same editorial staff will handle the review process for all
papers, regardless of origin. The Editor-in-Chief of TNS is authorized
to move forward with implementing this change.
This motion was moved, seconded and passed.
3. Paul Dressendorfer is authorized for 2005 to allocate
up to $40,000 for administrative support to the Editorial staff
of TNS.
This motion was moved, seconded, and passed, and Paul will regulate
how this money is allocated and spent. He and others will also investigate
the practicality or wisdom in having one person handle all administrative
functions for our publications.
A motion was moved, seconded and passed to have plaques made to
honor certain long-standing and active members of AdCom.
It was also moved, seconded and passed that the ad hoc committees
on publications and membership would continue in 2005. The Membership
Committee has, in particular, been charged with looking at how to
handle member recruitment in a post-Vernon Price era since Vernon
has made rumblings about stepping aside. The publications committee
will finish its scrutiny of TNS and then will take a look at how
TPS operates.
The next meeting of the AdCom will be:
Saturday, 12 March 2005
Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites
Tucson, AZ
Albe Larsen can be reached at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,
2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025 USA; Phone: +1 650 926-2748;
Fax: +1 650 926-5124; E-mail: amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu.
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