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always, it has been a busy year and, after recovering from running
the NSS/MIC for 2005, I am working on the NMISTC agenda items. Even
though it is likely to be redundant with other reports in this news
letter, I have included some brief comments about the 2005 meeting
and the upcoming meetings through 2008. We had our Fall elections
last year and the new officers and board members are: vice-chair,
Charles Watson: Board members: Anna M. Cellar, Magnus Dahlbom, James
W. Hugg, Yuan-Chuan Tai, and Demitris Visvikis. We are now due to
propose a new AdCom at-large member, and I will be contacting individuals
in the next few weeks as possible candidates. We will also be setting
up a slate for new board members in June, so anyone interested should
contact me (tkldog@u.washington.edu).
Also included is the full text of the revised constitution and bylaws.
The change is primarily in the bylaws (section 3.5). This brings
our NMISTC into line with the changes in the RISC bylaws that established
an executive committee to improve the coordination of the two technical
committees in sponsoring the NSS/MIC annual meeting. This committee
is meeting by telephone on a regular basis to keep track of matters
of interest to both technical committees and to establish the oversight
committee (formerly the site selection committee). I strongly believe
that this new structure will improve our ability to deal with conference
issues and continue to improve all functions of both technical committees.
The changes were approved by the NMISTC at the October 2005 meeting
and have been approved by AdCom at the meeting in February. While
these changes solve the immediate formal issue of the executive
committee, we are going to further review the current document to
identify any other improvements that should be made.
MIC 2005
The successful 2005 NSS/MIC conference was held from October 23-29,
2005 at the Wyndham El Conquistador resort in Las Croabas, Puerto
Rico. The venue was not large enough for the number of papers submitted
and many good papers had to be rejected due to the space limitations.
However, the site also offered a relaxed and informal atmosphere
that added greatly to the success of the conference. To take full
advantage of the site, we organized sessions from 8 am to noon and
then from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm on social function nights and 8 pm
on other evenings. The registration was 1126. There were 372 oral
papers (300 NSS, 50 MIC, and 22 joint NSS/MIC). There was sufficient
space to allow all of the 651 posters to be displayed for the entire
conference. NSS had 284 posters, MIC 290, and there were 77 joint
NSS/MIC posters. There were 6 short courses that attracted 255 attendees.
The social functions were also well attended with 325 at the NSS
lunch, 390 at the MIC dinner, and over 1000 at the conference reception.
The companion program was equally well attended with 580 participating.
There were major logistical challenges including having to install
our own wireless network for all conference functions and deal with
the problem of accommodating the lack of sufficient hotel room capacity
at the conference site. We originally contracted for 2600 room nights.
After the Rome meeting, we increased the contract to over 3600 room
nights. In late summer of 2005 we contracted additional rooms at
two other hotels to a total of 5491 room nights. In the end, the
conference was credited with 6333 room nights – and that does
not include those who made their own arrangements for lodging. These
challenges impacted our budget as we had to arrange for extra transportation
and cover the larger food and beverage demands. Yet, we still expect
to return between $130,000 and $141,000 (~ 20%) to NPSS.
MIC 2006
The 2006 IEEE conference will incorporate the Nuclear Science Symposium
(NSS), Medical Imaging Conference (MIC) and Room Temperature Semiconductor
Detector (RTSD) workshop, and will be held Oct 29 - Nov 4 at the
Town & Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego.
The Call for Papers, and Posters, advertising the 2006 IEEE meeting,
were distributed to each attendee at Puerto Rico meeting. The 2006
Exhibitors brochure was distributed to the vendor booths at this
meeting also. We have previously established May 19, 2006, as the
submission deadline. The NSS, MIC and RTSD respective program chairs
are all actively planning their agendas beyond submitted papers.
There are three satellite workshops planned: “Micro-pattern
Gas Detectors,” “Nuclear Radiology of Breast Imaging,”
and “Compressed Xenon Detectors.” The short courses
will continue under Steve Derenzo’s direction.
MIC 2007
This meeting will be held at the Hilton Hawaii Village, Honolulu,
Oct. 26-Nov 3, 2007. The general chair for the meeting is Ben Tsui
(Johns Hopkins), who is forming the organizing committee. Eric Frey
(Johns Hopkins) has agreed to be the MIC chair, and Magnus Dahlbom
will be the deputy MIC chair. The first planning meeting for this
conference was held on October 26th in Puerto Rico.
MIC 2008
The general chair for this meeting will be Uwe Bratzler. The meeting
will be held at the conference center in Dresden.
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