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IEEE NPSS Administrative Committee (AdCom) held its annual meeting
on November 3, 2007 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, in
conjunction with the NSS/MIC conference. NPSS continues to do well
financially and is one of the most fiscally stable of IEEE societies.
Closing conference budgets in a timely way remains an issue, and
to any conference treasurer reading this, I urge you to talk with
Ed Lampo or Tony Lavietes (e.lampo@ieee.org;
lavietes1@llnl.gov) about
closing your books even when the very last bills have not been paid.
IEEE HQ can do this for you and we can avoid penalties and the wrath
of the IEEE auditing accountants. New software is also in the works
that should make conference budget preparation and tracking easier,
and that should make reporting to IEEE much simpler. Stay tuned!
President Jane Lehr reported that TAB approved the formation of
a Biometrics Council. At this time we are taking a watch what develops
attitude. TAB is also starting to look outward after many years
of having to deal with internal issues. There is also word that
there may be a new terahertz journal as this is a growing field
of activity.
Are you a member of IEEE who is eligible to become a senior member?
If so, contact Rick Van Berg or Christoph Ilgner to advance your
status (rick@hep.upenn.edu;
christoph.ilgner@cern.ch).
To become an IEEE Fellow it is necessary to be a senior member.
There is also some thought of how to support conference chairs who
have very big jobs. This may well be discussed at our retreat. There
may also be discussion of further student scholarships and of an
NPSS-related field award. That is being investigated.
News from Technical Committees
Most of the TC news has been reported in this or the September issue
of the Newsletter and I won’t repeat it here.
CANPS: The Executive Committee has added six members,
two members have retired and a further six have been asked to resign
or to resume activity. Of the 30 total, 14 are from North America,
12 from Europe, and 4 from Asia. It has been confirmed that the
2009 meeting will be held in Beijing, with an Asian oversight committee.
Portugal has been selected for the 2011 meeting. An annual ATCA
workshop, to be held in conjunction with RT has been proposed and
is being investigated. There is broad support from several communities.
Fusion: The Standing Committee has discussed inviting
the fusion award winners to be plenary speakers at the conference
following the award. There were five finalists for the student paper
award, with four of the five from overseas. The 23rd and 24th SOFE
conferences will collocate with ICOPS, in San Diego, June 1-4, 2009
and in Chicago, June 35-30 in 2011.
Nuclear Medical and Imaging Science and Radiation Instrumentation
are the joint sponsors of NSS/MIC at which the Annual Meeting of
AdCom is held. This 2007 meeting was highly successful with a large
number of attendees rivaling Rome for the highest and with the highest
abstract submittal ever, and with many more Asian attendees (21%)
than usual – the goal of meeting in Hawaii. There were also
many student travel grants, 116 for MIC and 147 for NSS. There is
always a question of how student travel awards should be paid, governed
at least in part by government agency regulations. Ed Lampo and
Tony Lavietes will review these and develop a standard procedure
for student travel awards. Some innovations included the very well
received refresher courses and the increase in both the NSS and
MIC programs. The 2008 meeting, in Dresden, is described above.
The committee for 2009 in Orlando has been formed and is starting
to plan for that meeting. The 2010 conference will be held in Knoxville,
TN. Charles Watson is the new NMIS chair.
Particle Accelerator Science and Technology: The
2007 meeting was reported on in the September 2007 Newsletter. At
that meeting, 245 individuals became IEEE members! The committee
is introducing bylaws for the PAC OC and a constitution and bylaws
for the PAST TC. PAC 2009 will be held in Vancouver in May and PAC
2011 will be in New York City in March. There will be a PAC in North
America every 18 months to comply with the Europe/Asia/North America
rotation that the international particle accelerator community requested.
Every second PAC will be an IPAC. To control meeting proliferation,
APS DPB will drop some of its meetings.
Plasma Science and Applications: The 2007 conference
was reported in detail in the September Newsletter. As mentioned
above, 2009 and 2011 will be held jointly with SOFE. In 2012 there
will be the first ICOPs held in the UK, with the site to be decided.
Candidates to date are Birmingham, Edinburgh and York.
Pulsed Power: The Pulsed Power conference for 2007
was held jointly with ICOPS as PPPS (see Sept. 2007 Newsletter).
The 2009 Pulsed Power conference will be held in Washington, DC.
In 2011 they will collocate in Chicago with ICOPS and SFE. The PPST
TC has four new members, and three members have retired. Edl Schamiloglu
is the new TC chair (see below for bio).
Radiation Effects: Although it was a tight deadline,
the NSREC report appeared in the September Newsletter. Your Newsletter
editor heartily recommends that every Technical Committee find a
clone of Teresa Farris, the outstanding Radiation Effects publicity
czarina, who always reports, and reports in a timely way! The 2008
meeting will be in July at the new J.W. Marriott Star Pass Resort
in Tucson, AZ, the 2009 meeting in Quebec City at the Hilton, 2010
at the Adams Mark in Denver and 2011 will be at a site yet to be
determined on the western side of North America. The RADECS meeting
was held in Deauville, France with over 100 papers presented and
over 300 attendees. Papers appear in TNS.
News from Functional Committees and Liaisons
The Conference Policy Committee met in Honolulu
prior to the AdCom meeting. The Conference Policy Manual is meant
to be a help to conference chairs and organizers. As IEEE is producing
a new conference policy manual, the NPSS document will be brought
in line with IEEE’s manual. Both will reflect the internationalization
of meetings. The new IEEE manual can be found at http://www.ieee.org/web/conferences/mom/index.html.
All conference officers and committee chairs should read the appropriate
chapters. Many other useful documents are referenced and hyperlinked
from this manual’s on-line pages.
The Awards Committee has moved the deadline for
Society Award nominations back to January 31, as noted in September.
The goal is to make award decisions earlier so that awards can be
presented in the year they are awarded, rather than in the following
year. This reflects the change from presenting all Society awards
at the NSS/MIC to allowing the recipients to receive awards in the
community to which they belong. The TAB Awards and Recognition manual
has been modified and has gone to TABARC for approval. The new manual
can be found at http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/volunteers/tab/TAB_Awards_and_Recognition_Manual.pdf.
Our Society Award information has been brought up-to-date in the
revision. The Awards committee is also looking at the dollar limits
on awards and may propose some restructuring to bring us into alignment
with professional societies such as APS and SPIE.
The Membership Committee has had good support and
good results at the 2007 conferences, but the issue of member retention
remains an important one. This will be examined this spring.
The Chapters and Distinguished Lecturers Committee
supports 10 active Chapters. Chas Neumeyer has done heroic work
in the revitalization of these activities. Sadly, he is stepping
down and Steve Gold will take over and continue that work. There
have been a number of Distinguished Lecturers giving presentations
at Chapter meetings, but there remains ample room for growth. There
are also rumors that several other chapters are in the formative
state. Chas has been working on a guide for NPSS Chapter chairs
to be a companion to the IEEE guide available on line.
A 2008 Class of Distinguished Lecturers is needed. These are appointments
with no term limit but must be reappointed yearly.
The Communication Committee notes again the problems
with shipping materials to conferences. Often brochures and leaflets
sent for inclusion in conference briefcases are not included because
of a communications gap between the chair and the staff doing work,
or the delivery is misplaced. This is wasteful and expensive. Our
web master also notes that our web site needs a face lift, and each
technical and functional committee should bring its content up to
date to make the site more relevant and useful.
The Fellow Candidate Evaluation Committee reviewed
14 applications in 2007. The new Fellows are presented below, where
their short biographies and the citations for their work appear.
We are honored to have had six (43%) of our applicants elevated
to Fellow. This speaks highly of the outstanding care our committee
gives to its reviews and rankings. As is noted below, it isn’t
too early to start to think of the 2009 pool of Fellow candidates!
Applications are due by March 1 and require considerable thought
in preparation.
The Nominations Committee announced the newly elected
AdCom Class of 2011: David Abe (PSA); Janet Barth (Radiation Effects);
Hutch Nielson (Fusion); Dillon McDaniel (Pulsed Power); and Stefan
Ritt (CANPS) completing a term ending in 2009 and eligible to stand
for a full four-year term. Meet them in the articles below.
In 2008 we seek candidates from the NMIS, PSA and Transnational
communities to fill seats that will be vacated at year’s end.
The Publications Committee reports that TNS is
in its third year of the new paradigm – editor-in-chief, senior
editors and editors. There are two new associate editors for NSS,
two for MIC and one for RT. The June 2008 issue will contain SCINT
papers. Chuck Melcher is the editor. There is still pressure to
get the Radiation Effects papers reviewed, edited and published
in a more timely fashion. TPS will not accept papers presented in
a conference record without significant paper revision. This is
also an IEEE concern – that Conference record and reviewed
papers published in Transactions should be recognizably different.
There is a time problem with both authors and reviewers not returning
papers in a timely way. IEEE has set guidelines and our journals
meet them relatively well for regular issues, but less well for
special issues. There is a constant demand for competent and on-time
reviewers. Reviewing papers in your field is a great way to start
getting active in the society!
The Standards Committee is making progress with
new figures for the germanium standard, which is to be reissued.
The committee needs more individuals willing to review standards,
Contact Ron Keyser if you are interested.
The Transnational Conference Liaison is tracking
our international conferences, their growth, their committee structure.
They are also concerned with a new section of the NPSS Conference
Policy document that provides guidance for hosting international
conferences.
The Transnational Committee has extensive membership
representing all regions and meets by teleconference. They did have
an in- person meeting during the NSS/MIC and a meeting in Prague
at the beginning of October to encourage eastern European attendance
in Dresden and at our other conferences. For example, ICOPS will
meet in Karlsruhe this year. They have aweb master who works to
keep their information up-to-date.
The liaison to the Society for Social Implications of Technology
reports that the On-line Ethics Center started at Case Western Reserve
has been absorbed by the NAE. IEEE’s own ethics activities
were absorbed by the Member Conduct Committee some years ago and
there is little IEEE effort to support or uphold its excellent Code
of Ethics. IEEE members do lend support to the NAE activities.
Engineers Without Borders is an organization that helps in countries
in need with small engineering programs. See their web site http://www.ewb-international.org/.
They are headquartered in the US with regional offices in Denmark,
Egypt and India. Check out their web site and see where you can
participate.
The Energy Policy Committee liaisons report that
their committee’s focus has shifted to electric power regulation
and billing and topics such as fusion energy have been shoved aside.
The RADECS liaison reports that both the conferences
and workshops, held alternate years are very successful and it is
possible that they will switch to an annual meeting format.
The Medical Sciences liaison position has been
taken on by Randy Brill. There is a lot of activity of interest
to NPSS. The challenge is to filter it, and to crack the code of
how to become involved in the teleconferences and other discussions.
The Women in Engineering liaison reports that only
eight societies have liaisons thus far. They try to meet by conference
call and may change the conference call schedule to a quarterly
meeting. They support WIE activities at conferences and try to encourage
women members and encourage students to become members. They now
have a monthly newsletter.
AdCom Actions:
• It was moved, seconded and passed unanimously that we become
technical cosponsors of SORMA, the 2008 Symposium on Radiation Measurements
and Applications to be held in Berkeley, CA in June 2008.
• It was moved, seconded and passed that the Phelps Grants
total be increased to $8000 and that early career investigators
in the first 5 years of their careers be included as eligible.
• The Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Awards may
be increased to $4,000 for the principal award and $2000 for the
PAST student award pending TAB approval. Other award levels will
be addressed if TAB approves award increases.
• It was moved, seconded and passed that TPS move from bimonthly
to monthly publication beginning in 2009.
• It was moved, seconded and passed that AdCom agrees to Technical
Cosponsorship of the Workshop on Hybrid Imaging with MR-PET to be
held at FZJ October 27-28, 2008.
Albe Larsen can be reached at the 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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