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IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium (NSS) and Medical Imagining Conference
(MIC) was held this year at the Wyndham El Conquistador resort in
Las Croabas, Puerto Rico (just outside of San Juan). The meeting
ran from October 23 with short courses and ended with the MIC conference
dinner on the evening of October 29. The El Conquistador was a beautiful
resort facility that allowed all of the conference activities in
one location.
The conference was well attended with 1244 registrants from around
the world. This response reflects the tremendous efforts made by
the conference committee coupled with the success and additional
publicity of the outstanding conference held last year in Rome,
Italy – the second NSS/MIC conference held outside continental
North America. A major challenge for the committee was the selection
of the papers for presentation. When the conference site was selected
several years ago, the projection was that about 850 papers would
be submitted. Unfortunately, the space limitations of our site could
not accommodate all of the many fine papers we received for 2005.
Thus, many deserving papers could not be accepted. Even with this
most difficult complication, the Program Committee put together
an exceptional conference covering a broad area of interests to
the community.
The conference included 300 oral presentations for NSS, 50 oral
presentations for MIC, and 22 oral presentations in the joint NSS/MIC
sessions. We were particularly pleased that we were able to allow
all of the posters (both NSS and MIC) to remain in place throughout
the conference. The poster sessions consisted of 284 NSS papers,
290 MIC papers, and 77 joint session papers. I am equally pleased
to report that the posters were of exceptionally high quality and
one could find attendees reading posters at just about any time
of day (the poster areas were open 24 hours a day).
The Continuing Education Program this year consisted of six short
courses in nuclear science and medical imaging – some of which
were held over a two-day period. These courses provide an essential
opportunity for the expert and newcomer alike to be taught by practicing
experts. In addition, special emphasis sessions and workshops were
organized to cover topics such as hydron therapy and the OpenGATE
Monte Carlo simulation package. In all, there were 255 attendees
to the short courses.
The El Conquistador facilities allowed the collocation of both the
exhibition and the poster sessions in the same general area. The
exhibit area was also well attended and included 42 booths. Continuing
in the success of previous years, exhibitors also took part in a
seminar to present technical briefings and product presentations.
We also held a well-attended roundtable on knowledge transfer and
management in the transfer process. This roundtable was organized
by Uwe Bratzler and Jean-Marie Le Goff (Group Leader of Technology
Transfer at CERN).
The use of computer facilities at the NSS/MIC meeting has steadily
increased over the years. Taking full advantage of the number of
attendees who bring laptop computers with WiFi capability, the conference
this year covered the main conference areas of the hotel with a
wireless network – including the entire commercial exhibit
area and several seating areas near the poster displays. The efforts
of our NSS/MIC technical team were extraordinarily successful. For
this conference, our team brought, installed, and operated the entire
wireless network. In fact, we had a single connection to the outside
world. All of the conference computer access was through that one
connection and our own networking equipment. As a general chair,
I was most pleased with the use of the pool of equipment supplied
via NPSS.
Given the unique venue for this conference, the committee decided
to split the sessions each day – with sessions running from
8 am to noon and then starting again at 3:30 pm and running to 6:30
or 8 pm depending on the evening activities. This format was selected
to allow attendees and their guests to enjoy the relaxed, informal
atmosphere of the hotel facilities for discussions as well as relaxation
between sessions. The committee received very positive feedback
on this format. It allowed attendees to relax between large blocks
of sessions, continue discussions from the sessions, and enjoy the
venue with friends and family members.
The enjoyments of the venue also led us to put in extra effort to
provide an unusual and exciting Companion Program. Participants
got the opportunity to experience a variety of exciting events including
trips to Old San Juan, a tour of Ponce City and its art galleries,
a full day exploring the Arecibo radio telescope and the Camuy Cave
system, as well as cooking classes, rain forest tours, and even
kayaking.
The tours were very well attended. We were fortunate that the tour
company was very flexible and we were able to allow a large number
of participants to register for tours on-site. A total of 580 attendees
and family members took part in the companion program.
In addition to these organized tours, the El Conquistador offered
the full range of water sports (scuba diving, snorkeling, wind surfing,
etc) as well as golf, riding, and relaxing on the ocean or at one
of the several pools. There were also programs for families and
children at the hotel that our companion program chairs helped arrange.
While we cannot provide statistics of how many conference participants
used the hotel facilities, an informal gathering of impressions
indicates that essentially all used some aspect of the many facilities
with considerable enjoyment.
The various conference-supported events were also well attended.
The NSS luncheon included 325 attendees and the MIC dinner 390.
The largest event, and one I was particularly pleased with, was
the conference reception. We were able to hold an outdoor buffet
with a large variety of excellent dishes reflective of Puerto Rico
and the Caribbean. The area was large enough to allow tables and
chairs for all – and all was over 1000 individuals.
The number of attendees and family members was a challenge in terms
of the hotel rooms available. When we first planned the meeting,
we contracted for the traditional 2600 room nights we have used
in past years for the size of conference we had planned for. Of
course, this was before the highly successful Rome conference. After
Rome, we increased our room blocks to over 3800 room nights. However,
as the registrations came in, it was apparent we needed yet more
and we were able to increase our contracted hotel blocks to 5491
room nights. In the end, the conference hotels sold 6333 room nights
and that does not include all of those who made their own lodging
arrangements independent of the contracted hotel room blocks.
Rather than recap the details of the scientific sessions, I invite
anyone who is interested to go to the conference web site and peruse
the program (www.nss-mic.org/2005). Of particular note is that we
were able to mail out the conference-paper CD by the end of December.
And that brings me to the long list of volunteers who made this
meeting such a success. The CD being out on time is primarily due
to the efforts of Bo Yu, our conference editor and web master. The
meeting would not have happened at all without the outstanding efforts
of our local arrangements chair, Tony Lavietes. Our technical team
(who did such a great job with our network challenges) was headed
up by Dora Merelli and Tony Maeda. Of course, the scientific program
success was due to the efforts of Richard Lanza (NSS chair), Lorenzo
Fabris (NSS deputy chair), Simon Cherry (MIC chair), and Ramsey
Badawi (MIC deputy chair). The short course success was due to Steve
Derenzo (chair) and Jennifer Huber (deputy chair). The success of
the industrial program was due to our exhibit chair Ron Keyser and
the efforts of our commercial exhibit contractor (American Institute
of Physics). The registration went very well indeed thanks again
to Christina Sanders (registration chair) and good folks at TMG.
The arduous task of setting up, coordinating, and handling the inevitable
challenges of the companion program were successfully taken care
of by Barbara Lewellen (chair) and Carolyn Hoffman (deputy chair).
The promotion of the meeting was also outstanding due to the efforts
of the CIP committee and Uwe Bratzler (our publicity chair). Maxim
Titov stepped in to assist in the day-to-day problem solving of
the conference. While the list can go on and on (and even then,
I am sure I will forget to mention someone who deserves recognition),
I will end this list with Ed Lampo, the conference treasurer who
is still hard at work getting all of the many after-conference financial
tasks completed.
We are still working on getting the last numbers together, but we
do expect to be within the budget projections we put forth to IEEE
for the conference. While knowing that we will meet our fiscal obligations,
the real success of the conference was the quality of the papers
and the response of the participants. I have not yet seen the results
of the conference surveys, but the individual comments I received
were all very positive on both major metrics (quality of the papers
and the value of the conference to the participants). Thus, my committee
and I are satisfied that 2005 continued to carry on the high traditions
of the NSS/MIC conference.
Tom K. Lewellen, General Chair, 2005 NSS/MIC, can be reached at
University of Washington, P.O. Box 356004, Seattle, WA USA 98195-6004;
Phone: +1 206 598 6249; Fax: +1 206 598 4192; E-mail: nss2005@
u.washington.edu.
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