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Nuclear Science Symposium, Medical Imaging Conference and the 15th
International Workshop on Room Temperature Semiconductor X-and Gamma-ray
Detectors were held on October 29 – November 4, 2006 at the
Town and Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego, California.
The gathering also played host to a number of shorter workshops,
providing timely presentations on Micropattern Detectors, Compton
Scatter Imaging, Dual-modality PET/MRI, Hadron Therapy, GATE, and
the Nuclear Radiology of Breast Cancer (NRBC). Together with a comprehensive
set of short courses, an intensive exhibits program and a varied
companion program, there was never a dull moment, and over 1600
registrants made this the largest attendance at a North American
location, second only to Rome in 2004.
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| Figure 1 - Graphic of San Diego skyline and
oversize giraffes that was used in all the advertising and publicity
material. |
The 2006 conference committee consisted of twenty dedicated individuals,
though in reality the execution of a meeting of this size can only
be accomplished with the input of many additional volunteers; we
were certainly blessed with a large number of the latter. The conference
committee made only one formal visit to the Town and Country for
preplanning, in late January 2006. We ensured that all material
for the meeting, such as Posters, Call for Papers, Web information,
Program Booklet and so on, prominently displayed the graphic illustrated
in Figure 1, helping recipients quickly make an association with
this specific meeting.
The number of submissions of abstracts/summaries for the entire
program was well over 1300, with which we were very satisfied. The
breakdown between various sections of the program is shown in Table
1.
Table 1: Abstract/Summary Submissions
Considerable effort was made in seeking financial support for the
meeting, to augment income from registration fees. To this end,
the conference committee was able to raise close to $100k, a result
of the generous donations from institutions and commercial companies;
the major part was put toward financial support for well over 100
students and postdoctoral scientists. One of several ways we acknowledged
our sincere appreciation to these contributors was via a poster
showing the respective logos of the institutions and companies.
The full list of contributors is:
US Defense Threat Reduction Agency
US Department of Energy, Office of NonProliferation Research and
Development
Siemens Molecular Imaging and Siemens Medical Solutions
Philips Medical Systems
Hamamatsu
ORTEC
Merck & Co., Inc
GE Healthcare
GlaxoSmithKline
Digirad
eV Products
The MathWorks
As noted earlier, the final registration numbers exceeded those
of any previous meeting held in North America. The specific numbers
by category are shown in Table 2, while the geographic distribution
is illustrated in the pie-chart of Figure 2. The high number of
complimentary registrations largely reflects the students and postdoctoral
scientists (22 NSS/RTSD and 104 MIC) for whom we were able to waive
the registration fee, courtesy of the contributors noted above.
Table 2: Attendee categories
The entire meeting spanned eight days, beginning on Sunday, October
29, with the first day of Short Courses (more formally known as
the Continuing Education Program). Stephen Derenzo and Jennifer
Huber performed a masterful job in bringing together seven full-day,
courses: it is unusual for none to be half-day. The courses were
very well attended, as shown by the sign-up numbers in Table 3.
Table 3: Sign-up for Continuing Education Program
The Nuclear Science Symposium (NSS) began on Monday, October 30.
Following tradition, the first morning was given over entirely to
plenary talks. Three prominent speakers had been invited, covering
topics of extremely varied nature and of great national, and international,
importance. Thom Mason, the director of the Spallation Neutron Source
(SNS) at ORNL spoke first, on the development and recent commissioning
of this flagship DOE funded facility, and what will be the world’s
most powerful spallation source. Then, Tony Tyson, University of
California at Davis and director of the LSST, described the Large
Synoptic Survey Telescope, a wide field telescope that will be capable
of time-lapse digital imaging of faint astronomical objects across
the entire sky. Finally, Daniel Ingersoll, ORNL, discussed the science
and technology requirements of the next generation of nuclear power
reactors. The NSS contributed papers were presented from Monday
afternoon through the end of Thursday. Including posters, there
were 45 sessions, requiring significant numbers of parallel presentations.
The NSS program chairs, Chuck Britton and Vince Cianciolo, are to
be congratulated on overseeing this large program and minimizing
the degree of subject overlap.
Also on Monday afternoon, the 15th International Workshop on Room-Temperature
Semiconductor X- and Gamma-Ray Detectors began. Chaired admirably
by Ralph James (BNL) and Eugenio Perillo (INFN, Italy), this workshop,
colloquially known as the RTSD, is held in conjunction with the
NSS and MIC every other year, providing an environment for new and
fruitful associations between the respective attendees.
The third major meeting, the Medical Imaging Conference, began in
earnest on Wednesday November 1st, although there were two joint
NSS/MIC sessions on the previous afternoon. John Aarsvold, Emory
University, and Bruce Hasegawa, University of California at San
Francisco, put together an incredible program. Two pre-eminent scientists
were invited as plenary speakers. First, Jan Schnitzer, director
of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in San Diego, presented his thoughts
on a systems biology approach to cancer therapy, then Ron Nutt,
Chairman and CEO of Advanced Biomarker Technologies in Tennessee,
spoke on the role of PET and SPECT in molecular medicine. The MIC
consisted of twelve serial sessions of contributed papers, and three
substantial poster sessions, ending at the close of Saturday, November
4.
All of the above three main meetings had their respective “banquets.”
The NSS luncheon was held at noon on Monday. During this function,
Albe Dawson Larsen (SLAC) was presented with the 2006 Richard F.
Shea Distinguished Member Award, L. Eric Smith (PNNL) was presented
with the 2006 Radiation Instrumentation Early Career Award, and
certificates were presented to Claudio Piemonte, Ed McKigney, Werner
Riegler and Gabriella Carini for contributions to the field of Nuclear
Radiation Measurements. The luncheon speaker, Jerry Hastings from
SLAC, gave a riveting talk on the use of X-rays in time-resolving
studies below a picosecond, with specific reference to the Linear
Coherent Light Source (LCLS) now under development at SLAC. The
RTSD held its “banquet” at Wednesday noon; this had
a particularly nautical flavor, courtesy of Hornblower Cruises in
San Diego harbor. The MIC dinner, on Friday evening, was widely
acknowledged as the most spectacular, the event being held at Sea
World. Tours of part of the adventure park were followed by dinner
in the Nautilus Pavilion, the evening culminating in a private showing
of the Shamu Show, a captivating and visually stunning performance
from the killer whale. All three banquets were essentially sold-out,
the numbers being shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Banquet attendance
The MIC awards ceremony took place on Friday during one of the oral
sessions. Ronald Jaszczak, Duke University, received the Edward
J. Hoffman Medical Imaging Scientist Award. Suleman Suli, University
of Pennsylvania, received the 2006 Young Investigator Medical Imaging
Science Award.
The largest gathering was at the Conference Reception, held on Wednesday
evening on the hotel grounds, beside the palm trees and swimming
pools, with well over 1000 attendees thoroughly enjoying the ambiance.
In addition, a string octet from the Holland-Moritz Ensembles in
San Diego played both classical and modern tunes inside the Terrace
Pavilion.
Table 5: Special Focus Workshops
A number of special focus workshops were held throughout the week.
These (short) workshops were very well attended, with extra space
required at the last moment for two of them. The workshops are detailed
in Table 5.
Recently, the NPSS instituted an award to be given for the best
student paper in both the NSS and MIC programs. The task of determining
the awardees in this very worthy cause was taken extremely seriously
by both pairs of program chairs, with subcommittees formed to look
carefully at summaries, and then presentations, of those approximately
100 students who indicated their wish to be considered. We congratulate
all who took part. In the end, the winners were as follows; NSS:
best papers for Rafael Ballabriga (CERN) and Jonathan Britton (University
of Tennessee), and runner-up Markus Stockner (CERN); MIC: best papers
for Peter Olcott (Stanford University), Martin Judenhofer (University
of Tuebingen) and Mingwu Jin (Illinois Institute of Technology),
and runners-up Aarti Kriplani (SUNY, Stony Brook) and Feng Qiao
(Rice University).
Forty three companies were represented in the Exhibits Program,
ably chaired by Ron Keyser (ORTEC). We carefully planned the location
of the exhibits close to the registration desk, and this seems to
have maintained a high level of traffic for the exhibitors. The
customer interaction was apparently high and of high quality. The
Exhibitor Technical Sessions were well attended with “standing
room only” at some sessions. It is encouraging that a number
of exhibitors have already contracted for next year’s meeting
in Hawaii.
The Companion Program held at least one tour every day (none on
Sunday November 5). It was well planned and organized through the
diligent efforts of Anne Smith and Carolyn Hoffman. Merry Keyser
and Lee Lampo provided much appreciated assistance in the running
of the program. Day or half-day tours were enjoyed by over 200 guests/attendees
to Old Town San Diego (Sunday), South of the Border (Monday), San
Diego city (Tuesday), the Aolani Catamaran (Tuesday), La Jolla (Wednesday),
SeaWorld (Thursday), Palomar Observatory (Thursday and Friday),
San Diego Zoo (Friday), and Orfila Vineyards (Saturday).
The CIP committee was well represented by Uwe Bratzler; members
of CIP continue to play an invaluable role in many important facets,
especially their help and participation during the meeting. Under
the CIP’s delightful oversight, over 100 new applications
for membership of IEEE and NPSS were received at their desk. Dora
Merelli looked after technical support with her usual whirlwind
efficiency.
Rounding off a most helpful and hard-working conference committee,
Christina Sanders chaired the Registration process with great style,
Local Arrangements were in the steady and capable hands of Ed Lampo,
aided by Maxim Titov. The Treasurer’s job was skillfully managed
by Tony Lavietes, to whom credit should also go for bringing the
meeting back to the Town and Country hotel. There is no doubt that
the hotel’s very practical layout and its value for money
warranted a return visit after the meeting was held there in 2001,
and Tony seized the opportunity by negotiating a timely and favorable
contract for 2006 very early on. Much of the accounting is now being
finalized, and it appears that a very healthy surplus will be generated.
Bernard Phlips, the Guest Editor, has one of the last duties, and
we look forward to seeing the CD of the Conference Record soon in
the New Year. Finally, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my BNL
colleagues, Bonnie Sherwood (Conference Coordinator), Bo Yu (Webmaster),
and Jean-Francois Pratte (Assistant to General Chair) for their
unending efforts in our many weekly planning meetings.
There are many volunteers who have gone unmentioned. However, if
the main outcome was a meeting of excellent and timely science (which
I believe is the case), with old and new friendships made, then
that is reward in itself for all the hard work that everyone put
in.
Graham Smith can be reached at the Instrumentation Division, Brookhaven
National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA; tel: 1 631 344 4253;
E-mail: gsmith@bnl.gov
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