The IEEE NPSS Administrative Committee met on March 1, 2003, in St. Louis, MO. We were pleased to welcome the new elected AdCom members Joe Benedetto (Radiation Effects), Grant Gullberg (NMIS), Glenn Knoll (Radiation Instrumentation) and Patrick O’Shea (Particle Accelerator Science and Technology). Tom Hussey is the new Plasma Sciences and Applications chair. Gerald Jackson, the chair of the PAC Electronic Archiving project, also joined us.
Ed Lampo reported that more conferences are closing late and we have already incurred eight fines. These are not a one-time deal. They repeat and increase in penalty size over time. Conference chairs and conference treasurers/financial chairs must pay special attention to closing their conferences on time. Remember that you can close a conference before the last bills have been paid. Close your books and authorize IEEE to make these final payments. Talk to Ed Lampo (e.lampo@ieee.org) if you have any question about the procedure. Ed also noted that TAB, the Technical Activities Board, has recommended a 20% of the conference budget as the return to societies, up considerably, but in line with having to pay for more services that were previously paid from IEEE general funds, now depleted due to mismanagement and poor financial practices, and an unrealistic dependency on the stock market. Hal Flesher commented that chasing people to get conferences closed also costs money, and that when budget projections are not met, that also costs money because of having to deal, often at great expense, with lack of predictability. Hal also noted that while NPSS is trying hard to globalize and to hold conferences in non-US venues, that the problems with closing overseas conferences have been a challenge and expensive.
It was also asked why our journals are given a financial “reward” when they stay within 5% of the page budget set by the editors each year. When these goals are met, the Publications Office workload is predictable. When they are not, it causes either extra work or too little that then has to be caught up when the next over-page budget project arrives. This, too, costs IEEE money. It was also noted that IEEE publication sales were down last year, and this was not balanced by additional increases in the IEL revenue.
Our new president, Ed Hoffman, reported that we continue to have problems with publications. Although the last two issues of TNS were out on time, there were problems with the issues. Part of the problem is that everything is a crisis for IEEE Publications, and there isn’t very good communication among editors, authors and Pubs. In some cases, Pubs editors change language in a way that they change meaning, and these changes do not get back to authors so that they can be reviewed over a reasonable time frame. There have been problems, too, with graphics that have been the result of poor communication. The Panel of Editors meeting will discuss and try to resolve some of these issues, and the issues for the NPSS journals will also be discussed in our five-year society review that will be presented this June.
Ed also talked about funding for Vernon Price’s recruiting activities at our conferences. It has been suggested that the conference policy manual be amended to indicate that, with the conference requesting Vern’s presence, the NPSS will pay his expenses, although the conferences are encouraged to provide him a room from their comped room block. Additional discussion is needed on the Distinguished Lecturer program and on funding for chapters. These issues will be addressed at the July 26 meeting.
The question was also raised of whether all our journals should be digitized and made available on-line. The issues of cost and who pays for the work need to be addressed.
The issue of TIP codes was also raised. What do we use them for? What needs to be maintained? Are they of value to NPSS? They are expensive to maintain and, according to Hal Flescher, only a few societies actually make much use of them. Hal will discuss this with HQ and come back to AdCom with more information.
Ed asked Peter Winokur, our immediate past president, to present an overview of AdCom and where it fits into NPSS and IEEE. Peter first noted that this is a volunteer society. We don’t have any hired administrative people as some societies do. We are about 3,000 members, a number that has grown slightly in the last few years, and are divided into eight technical committees that work to transmit information to our membership. On the most basic level, this is our charter. At one level this looks very simple and straightforward. However, because we are part of a very large organization, there are many complexities. These include our relationships with IEEE management, with the Technical Activities Board (TAB), Regional Activities Board (RAB) and Educational Activities Board (EAB) management, with IEEE Publications who produce our journals and conference records, and those of 36 other societies and councils, and who manage the premier products offered by IEEE, the All-Periodicals Package (APP), and the Integrated Electronic Library (IEL). The benefits in general outweigh the problems in being part of an organization that is close to 400,000 strong, with broad and growing membership outside the US. However, there are problems within the organization structure, one being that TAB, which has 37 societies and councils in 10 divisions, generates significant income for IEEE and yet has no more voice in IEEE management than RAB, which gets an allowance and which has not taken fiscal conservancy seriously yet. This arrangement makes it very hard to make substantive changes in the overall management of IEEE. During the 1990s the stock market was providing IEEE large returns on its reserves and general fund and the organization followed very poor business practices, including operating on deficit budgets for several years. It has only been since the big downturn in the stock market that IEEE has started to look at how it does business and to institute some reforms. They now have a balanced budget, but have had to use society money to balance their budgets. Because NPSS has been fiscally responsible and had, for a relatively small society, healthy reserves, we have been severely penalized. Slowly, IEEE is moving toward learning how to distribute costs as appropriate and to live within its means. Because of these problems, NPSS is becoming even more fiscally conservative. Among other things, we are working toward eliminating our subsidy of membership in NPSS, which amounts to about $60,000 per year.
Hal Flescher, who was NPSS president in 1990, is now our Division IV director has been heavily involved with TAB since the days of his presidency. He has been TAB treasurer and now, as a Division Director, represents part of TAB on the Board of Directors which, for those not familiar with the structure, comprises the present, past and future presidents of IEEE, 11 representatives from TAB (vice president plus 10 Division directors), 11 from RAB, one from IEEE-USA and one each from Standards and Education. To change the constitution and bylaws of IEEE requires a 2/3 vote of the Board. Hence, TAB and RAB both have the power to block any changes. As RAB gets a portion of the dues and does not earn or spend any money, it is highly unlikely that the RAB general mentality is apt to be changed by anything less than cataclysmic. When they do spend money, they don’t necessarily spend it wisely. Witness: a recent Region 3 meeting at a Jamaican resort!! Why?
As Division IV director, Hal represents 5 societies. The Computer Society has two directors, the Communications Society has one, and the other 7 Division Directors represent several societies each. Hal is chair of the IEEE Nominations Committee, and also involved with the Infrastructure Oversight Committee, and the committee headed by former president Winston that is involved with budget reporting simplification. IEEE does not do business in a clearly understandable way, and this committee is addressing this problem. (Also, look at Peter Staecker’s reports in the 2001 and 2002 Newsletters!) There have been many other reports on IEEE’s financial problems and the build-up and then loss of the General Fund Reserve. Hal reviewed that financial history.
Hal noted that about 40% of IEEE members are not affiliated with any society, and that there are more industrial than scientific community (universities, national research labs) members. In early 2003, over 30% of IEEE’s membership is from outside the USA. In 8 years, at the same growth rate, the US and non-US membership will be equal.

Technical Committee Reports
Christian Boulin, chair of the Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences TC was unable to attend this meeting, so Patrick LeDû reported for him. The RT2001 books are still not closed, but they are trying to resolve this. The CANPS committee is being enlarged and is becoming more active in supervising the conferences. At present there are 10 members, and it is planned to increase that number to 15. The committee met on March 15 and will meet again in Montreal in May, during the RT2003 conference. Patrick noted that the majority of RT conference attendees are from Europe. Jean-Pierre Martin, chair of RT2003, reported that the web site is active and has links for abstracts, conference registration and hotel reservations. Registration is being handled by IEEE Conference Services, and they will provide a registration manager at the conference itself. As of March 1, 135 abstracts had been received. Conference attendance, based on prior history, is expected to be about 225, with 70% of the attendees coming from Europe. The program has been defined and Saclay is preparing the program booklet. There will be a commercial exhibit with exhibitors being offered the choice of a booth and/or a sponsorship opportunity. The Physics Department of the University of Montreal and Saclay are providing manpower support at the conference.
Fusion Technology Standing Committee chairman Phil Heitzenroeder reported that the 2002 SFE was closed, with an excellent return to NPSS. The dates and hotel for the 20th SFE have been set. The meeting will be at the Bahia Hotel in San Diego under the chairmanship of Richard Callis, from October 14 to 17. The first call for papers went out in January, and abstracts are due in April. IEEE Conference Services will handle registration and have reviewed the hotel contract. The second call for papers was in the process of being mailed. As of March 1 there were only 58 preregistered attendees. A conference call with the Standing Committee was organized to urge abstract submittal. The web site has been updated and upgraded, and links to fusion information at other sites have been incorporated. Mark Tillack of UCSD has taken on the role of web master for the Fusion Technology Standing Committee.
Ron Keyser has just assumed chairmanship of the Nuclear Instruments and Detectors committee. Their role is to enact, update and maintain our standards. It is probable that this committee will, in future, become a functional committee of NPSS.
Ron Jaszczak, chair of the Nuclear Medical and Imaging TC presented the revised bylaws for this elected TC. The biggest change is in providing for a two-year term for the chair-elect, to allow a better learning opportunity before assuming leadership.
Steve Mieckle has proposed a Pacific Rim NSS/MIC. This is under consideration. Magnus Dahlbom, the NMIS vice chair and web master is working with Radiation Instrumentation to integrate the MIC and NSS better, so that functions that don’t need duplication are no longer duplicated in the conference management. Obviously some functions, such as choice of award winners, cannot be integrated. The goal is more efficiently run conferences.
Bruce Brown, chair of the Particle Accelerator Science and Technology committee reported that PAC01 books are closing. They went to audit in February, and audit returns will be complete in March. PAC05 will be chaired by Norbert Holtkamp of SNS and will be held at the Knoxville Convention Center. The contract for PAC05 has been well vetted by the community and IEEE and is now going to the Convention Center and the affiliated hotels for final tweaking. PAC07, to be chaired by Stan Schriber, formerly of LANL and now of Michigan State, will be held at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Although Stan has moved from the area, LANL will continue to provide support for the conference.
Bob Siemann, chair of PAC03 was with us, and he reported that Ed Lee of LBNL has taken over from Alan Jackson as program chair. Alan has gone to Australia to work on the Australian Light Source. There have been 1283 poster submissions and there will be 80-90 invited oral papers and about 190 contributed oral papers. This year the registration fee is below that offered in 2001 since the proceedings will be available on CD only. These are still handled as an IEEE Conference Record and paper copies will be available through Book Broker. Later, Bob asked how IEEE NPSS values accrued to the Accelerator community. For the APS DPB profit share, all money goes to community activities. Their total budget is perhaps $60K a year. IEEE and NPSS function very differently. . Bruce also noted that NPSS and DPB hold different positions about money for awards, travel grants and so forth. NPSS is fiscally conservative and believes that conferences should fund these activities. We feel that we must have adequate reserves to cover a failed conference. APS DPB thinks surplus money from conferences should be used to fund these other activities. (Perhaps they should think about how they would handle a financial disaster, since they are liable for half of any loss and it is unlikely that APS will provide the funds – Secretary’s note.) There is, however, a legitimate issue of whether the PAC awards are NPSS awards or NPSS/APS DPB awards. The problem arises because PAC was an NPSS conference for 30 years before APS DPB became involved, and the problems arise from joint sponsorship.
Gerry Jackson, head of the PAC Electronic Archiving Project talked about the proposed digitization of all the PAC proceedings from 1963 to 1988 so that they will be available on line. IEEE has already given its permission for this project, but will continue to hold all copyrights. Adobe scanning, which has very high character recognition and which also allows full text search of digitized papers, is being used. To date papers through 1967 have been scanned and about half those from 1969 are complete. There is a critical need for funds to complete the project, which has a projected budget of $140K. So far $60K have been used. They are requesting $30K each from APS- Division of Physics of Beams, the Department of Energy, and NPSS to complete the project. There is $2500 in the PAC03 budget dedicated to this work
Vernon Price will attend the PAC03 in support of IEEE recruiting activities.
It was noted that the ASME is forming an accelerator group and are looking for sites for information.
There was discussion of how to pay for the Electronic Archiving. The simplest thing would be to include the funds in the conference budget, but it is too late to do that for 2003 and 2005 is pretty far down the line. It is hoped that the work will be complete before then. It was suggested by Hal Flescher that, as the return from PAC01 was expected to exceed the projected return, the funds beyond the expected return be applied to paying for this project. See AdCom actions later in this report.
Tom Hussey, of the Air Force Research Lab, is our new Plasma Science and Applications chair. He reported that Christine Coverdale is the newly elected vice chair. The 2003 meeting, to be held on Cheju Island, South Korea has, as of February 8, received about 700 abstracts, of which 270 are from Korea, 120 from Japan, 110 from the USA and 70 are from China. The budget is based on an attendance of 350. There may be travel problems due to the situations in Iraq and North Korea. There are also many more students registered than expected, which may impact the budget. In addition, there are other cultural differences in running a conference in Korea. A major example is that ICOPS has only published the invited talks in the past, whereas the attendees at this meeting expect to have the contributed papers published as well. Therefore, two issues of TPS will contain ICOPS papers – one with the invited papers and another with any contributed papers that are submitted. Of course, all papers will have to pass the IEEE review process.
Future ICOPS meetings: 2004, in Baltimore, MD; 2005 in Monterey, CA, back-to-back with Pulsed Power; 2006- Traverse City, MI; 2007 – PPPS, in Albuquerque.
This year’s ICOPS award goes to Tom Antonsen of the University of Maryland. Congratulations, Tom!
The PSAC is looking at strategies for holding other joint meetings, both with the Pulsed Power community and possibly with SFE. Hutch Nielsen of PPPL made a presentation to PSAC about collocation and both communities are evaluating this option.
Bob Reinovsky, chair of the Pulsed Power Technical Committee reported that although the 2001 financial report was not officially posted, NPSS has received a substantial return from the conference. The 2003 conference, to be held in Dallas in June, under the leadership of Mike Giesselmann of Texas Tech, has received 477 abstracts, up about 6% from 2001. It is a strong program with about half of the papers from the US. They used a commercial abstract service this year that was highly successful. The costs were modest and the reduction in stress on volunteers noteworthy. There were, on average, 2.4 reviews per abstract. There will be an industrial exhibit, job placement center, and one minicourse. The finances seem in good shape, although the uncertainties in international affairs are also a worry for this conference, with its large international attendance. There has also been an excellent pool of candidates for the three Pulsed Power awards
They also have been discussing the value of IEEE affiliation with several independent conferences including a Beams conference that will be collocated with the Dallas meeting, and the High-density Z-pinch conference.
The committee has been discussing membership rotations and is moving toward becoming an elected technical committee.
As Dale Platterer was unable to attend, Dennis Brown presented the Radiation Effects report. On July 1, Tim Oldham will take over as committee vice chairman, as Ron Schrimpf assumes the committee chairmanship. Janet Barth has accepted the chairmanship of the 2006 NSREC.
This is the 40th anniversary of Radiation Effects and there is a 40-year history on their web site http://www.nsrec.com/facts03.pdf. Check it out! Their web site also has a lot of other valuable information on Radiation Effects. They have planned a special June 2003 issue of TNS containing invited papers as part of the 40th anniversary commemoration.
The 2002 conference books are closed, with a return to NPSS slightly below that expected, even though the attendance was up by 12%.
An up-to-date archive of the NSREC short courses has been published on CD-ROM. These are available through IEEE on-line Catalog and Store.
The 2003 conference, under Alan Johnston of JPL, will be held in Monterey from July 20-25. Abstract receipt indicates that attendance should be close to that in 2002. Future NSRECs: 2004- Atlanta, GA; 2005 – Seattle, WA.
Ron Keyser, chair of the Radiation Instrumentation Steering Group, reported that the budget and room layouts have been completed for the 2003 NSS/MIC in Portland, OR. Ralph James of BNL is the general chair. The 2004 conference, to be held in Rome with Alberto del Guerra as general chair, is completing its budget. There are particular issues to be considered, such as potentially unavoidable taxes, but Hal Flescher is looking into this. The 2005 conference will be held in San Juan, PR with Tom Lewellen as the general chair, and 2006 will be held in San Diego. A proposal has been received, as mentioned above, from Steve Mieckle and Anatoly Rosenfeld for a Pacific Rim conference (read Australia) that is being evaluated by the joint NMIS/RI site selection committee.
Patrick LeDû reported on the struggles in closing the 2000 conferences held in Lyon. What is clear is that the processes in the US and in Europe are different. Some problems resulted from the transition from the French franc to the euro in 2000. Others resulted from the change in CEA Saclay’s accounting system to SAP, meaning that there was a long period of time over which account information was unavailable. There were other bureaucracy issues and, because the conference was such a success, it was noticed by France and the European Community, so unexpected taxes were levied against it at a rate of 20% on certain income. A negotiation is in process to reduce this to 5%, but at least some tax will be unavoidable, it seems. In addition, the conference service company, Carte Blanche, declared bankruptcy. Patrick feels that he finally has a good set of numbers with which to work, which he now has to present and justify. He hopes that all issues will be resolved shortly so that the conference can close. One important lesson for those organizing international conferences is to examine the methods of organization and the logistics and to work closely with our financial people as well as with those of the host country to try to prevent problems from happening. In the case of European conferences, it may be that the European Union would be a better host than an individual country. This is an issue to be explored.
It is clear that guidelines need to be written for non-US meeting planning.
It is hoped that, because of extenuating circumstances, the penalties levied against NSS/MIC 2000 will be waived.
As Erik Heijne was unable to attend this meeting, Patrick LeDû reported for the Transnational Committee that they are trying to define their work and activities.
They plan to promulgate the NPSS umbrella for appropriate European independent conferences, and are working on the issue mentioned several times above, of how to manage non-US conferences appropriately.

Functional Committee Reports
The Meetings committee would like input on upcoming conferences. Please send information to Ray Larsen (larsen@slac.stanford.edu) including conference name, dates, venue and contact person, when that information is available.
The Awards committee, chaired by Igor Alexeff, reviewed the NPSS awards that were also listed in the last Newsletter, and is seeking nominations, which will have been due on May 15. It was noted by Hal Flescher that the IEEE has trouble in getting nominees for the principal awards it offers. Maybe the community has become too blasé about these. Peter Winokur also reminded us that none of the Technical Field Awards offered by IEEE cover our interest areas. We could initiate one, but would also have to fund it unless we could find a corporate sponsor for it. We might still have the problem of getting a good pool of candidates after a few years!
Vernon Price, chair of the Members, Chapters and Distinguished Lecturers committee was at an IEEE meeting related to these subjects so several items were deferred to the July meeting, which we hope he’ll be able to attend.
The Finance committee, chaired by Hal Flescher, has had no formal meetings recently, but are in constant telephone contact, which is one of the reasons our society is fiscally very sound.
NOW is the time, says Peter Winokur, chair of the Nominations committee comprised of all TC chairs, to submit to him names of candidates to fill the four AdCom positions that will become vacant at year end. The areas to be replaced include Pulsed Power, Fusion, Plasma Science and Applications and Radiation Effects. Most remarkably, the Pulsed Power community already has two strong candidates! Good job, Bob Reinovsky and co!
Our editor-in-chief, Paul Dressendorfer, reported for all segments of the Publications committee. This is the year for our five-year journal review, which is companion to the society review. Paul noted that TNS and TPS have both had significant publication delays over the years. TNS actually came back on schedule with the December 2002 issue and TPS seems to be catching up. Delays are due both to editors/guest editors and to IEEE Publications. There are still quality issues related both to graphics and to text editing (see above, President’s Report). The first special issue of ICOPS contributed papers will appear in TPS in 2004.
The comment was made that TPS has not been out on time in several years, and that quality is a major issue. For example, material provided to IEEE Pubs for the August 2003 special issue was not included, and no reason was given for this.
The issue of lateness has been at a cost to NPSS. We were unable to get listed in Index Medicus, which is very important to the imaging community and to academics who rely on timely publication and science citations for promotions. The sources of delays are not always clear-cut.

Liaison Reports
Peter Winokur has asked to be replaced as liaison to the R&D Policy committee. Igor Alexeff is the new liaison to the IEEE Awards committee. Gerry Rogoff, the liaison to the Coalition on Plasma Science, has promised a full report in July. Peter Winokur noted that their meeting for Congressional staff and Congresspersons was very well attended and had much valuable information available. Hal Flescher, the liaison to RADECS noted that the steering committee has been reorganized and now has a number of new members. The RADECS issue of TNS from the Grenoble conference contains 32 papers of the 100 presented. The meeting in Padua, at which 40 papers were presented, (the alternate year small meeting) will contribute 14 to TNS. In 2003 the major meeting will be held in the Netherlands; in 2004 the small meeting is in Spain; and the 2005 large meeting will be in Montpelier, France. There is an effort to avoid duplications between the NSREC and RADECS programs.

Unfinished Business
Expenses for AdCom meetings held in conjunction with NPSS conferences should not be included in conference budgets. While AdCom asks the host conference to pay the bills, and the conference gets credited with rooms and meals for AdCom, the expenses are transferred to AdCom. This discussion provoked discussion of the Budget Sheets developed by IEEE. These are confusing and should be amended. Suggestions for changes will be given to Hal Flescher and he’ll take them to the TAB Finance committee on our behalf. If our conference organizers are finding these confusing, it is likely that others also are confused.

Actions Taken by AdCom
The revisions to the NMIS Bylaws were approved. The new Bylaws are published elsewhere in this issue of the Newsletter. They will go into effect 60 days following publication date, barring a large number of objections. A formal copy will be sent to IEEE.
It was moved, seconded and passed that the NPSS AdCom approve funds to conduct a five-year survey of member areas of interest
It was moved, seconded and passed that the NPSS AdCom authorize the PAC organizing committee to employ up to $60,000 from PAC01, beyond the return to APS DPB and IEEE NPSS budgeted at $62,300, for the PAC Electronic Archiving Project.
The next meeting of the IEEE NPSS AdCom will take place at the DoubleTree Hotel, Fisherman’s Wharf, Monterey, CA on Saturday, July 26, 2003, following the 2003 NSREC. The Annual Meeting of the AdCom will be held on Saturday, October 25, 2003 BEFORE the NSS/MIC in Portland. OR.
Respectfully submitted, Albe Larsen
Albe Larsen, the NPSS secretary, can be reached at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, P.O. Box 4939, Stanford, CA 94039; Phone: +1 650 926-2748; Fax: +1 650 926-5124; E-mail: amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu