| In the above report, Craig Woody has addressed the highlights of our retreat and meeting in Baltimore, March 6th and 7th, so I will comment on a few other things before providing a bit more meeting detail. The first is that this is the first issue of our newsletter that is being handled through outsourcing the electronic layout. I admit to considerable trepidation about it, and hope that you won’t find any degradation in quality. I attended the Panel of Editors meeting in Atlanta in early April to try to learn more about this. IEEE has been outsourcing layout of magazines and some journals for quite some time and they have had overall positive feedback. I am hoping our experience will be the same. Printing has been outsourced for many years – in fact I doubt that there are too many of us left who remember that there was a press in the basement of the United Engineering building in Manhattan, the building in which the IEEE Publications Department was once housed before almost all IEEE offices were moved to Piscataway. Times change, and we have to change with them and, although we are an international organization, it still hurts, especially in this economy, to see more jobs sent overseas. Aside from this particular issue, the Panel of Editors meeting was interesting. The focus, of course, is on editing and producing journals, a large source of revenue for our societies and for IEEE as a whole. The most fascinating presentation was the opening one that discussed web-based journal possibilities where journals were not merely viewed as print on the screen but which might include dynamic graphics that could show or explain part of an experiment or experimental set-up in a far more comprehensible way. The possibilities are endless and very exciting. The other presentations covered basics of the Pubs Department performance and so on. The breakouts for magazine and newsletter editors were less than they could have been and the representation from societies was very poor. There is a lot more I would like to know about newsletters in general and how other societies view them, but the reality is that they more often lose rather than make money and hence are only of interest in that they keep members informed of society activity.
Our financial picture has been discussed in the president’s report. Our Divivion IV Director, Roger Sudbury, was able to be with us for this meeting. He discussed the makeup of the Division, which consists of two large societies and five small ones. Because of this, the Division Director comes, alternately, from a large society and then a small society. Note that our own Peter Clout, a past NPSS president, the chair of our Communications Committee and chief mover and shaker in getting those beautiful brochures and leaflets printed and in getting booths and posters to our conferences, as well as serving on IEEE’s Society Review panel, among many other things, is a candidate for the next Division Director. You’ll hear more about that in the next Newsletter, but remember that Peter will serve us well, so vote for him when the time comes!
Roger discussed the state of the IEEE in some detail, after outlining its 125-year history. IEEE finished 2008 fairly well, but was short of funds for the defined benefits program, so some society reserves will be tapped. While there has not been a hiring freeze at IEEE HQ, there has been a slowdown in hiring and the need for new employees must be well documented. The early 2009 conferences are being pressed to get reports in early. There is some indication of lower attendance, but the trend isn’t really clear. While our society is financially sound and fiscally prudent, other societies have not managed as well. Some have revised their financial models and are now back on their feet and doing well. Others have been intransigent and are in serious financial trouble. It is unclear what their fate will be in the future, but it is likely that one or two may fold or find another healthy society with which to partner. TAB is keeping a close watch here.
Technical Committees
By the time you receive this Newsletter, both PAC in Vancouver and the Real Time Conference in Beijing will be over. RT-2009 has five days of plenary papers, a short course, and an ATCA workshop. A record number of abstracts was submitted for the conference. This is the last odd-year Real Time Conference, so there will be a conference next year in Portugal, in either Lisbon or Madeira, with a member of the fusion community as general chair, which is a major change, but reflects the broadening of the scope of papers in real time computing. The Symposium on Fusion Engineering and ICOPS conferences will be ready to launch. For the first time ever, selected papers from SOFE will be submitted for review to TPS and those selected will be published in a special issue of the journal in April 2010. Farhat Beg, the ICOPS chair, also attended our meeting and gave us an update on the status of ICOPS and more detail about how many areas of these two conferences will be combined, including one registration fee and a shared reception and banquet, and a Women in Engineering reception. A similar arrangement will prevail in 2011 in Chicago. ICOPS had received 548 abstracts by the time of this AdCom meeting.
The Nuclear Medical and Imaging Council and Radiation Instrumentation Technical Committee have been looking hard at the rising costs of conferences. What actions will be taken is uncertain. Conferences are scheduled though 2012, and an Asian or Australian venue is likely for 2013, made possible because of the great success in Hawai’i last year. The NMIS is a technical cosponsor of the Bratislava Summer School mentioned above.
The Particle Accelerator Conference, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, will also be over by the time you receive this Newsletter. Based on the submittal of well over 2000 abstracts, this should be a successful event for all participants. Look for a report in September. The next PAC will be in 18 months, at the Marriott Marquis in New York City, but there will be an IPAC in Kyoto, Japan in 2010.
The Pulsed Power TC is looking for a replacement for Bob Reinovsky who is now NPSS Vice President/President–elect. They will be working on a revision of their Constitution and Bylaws. The Pulsed Power Conference, to be held in Washington, DC in late June, may be the first with a higher international attendance than North American. They show the drop in abstracts that other IEEE conferences have shown. Their 2011 conference will be in Chicago, contiguous with ICOPS/SOFE.
The next Radiation Effects conference is well discussed in the lead article. AdCom will meet in Quebec following NSREC.
The Radiation Instrumentation Committee has some new faces as well as some old ones who have been reelected. It is especially pleasing to see Barbara Obryk and Christian Bohm among the new members. As you may recall, Barbara was one of the organizers of the very successful Women in Engineering panel at the Dresden NSS/MIC, and Christian played a critical leadership role in the 2005 Real Time conference in Stockholm. Other new members are Roger Gearhart, Dick Kouzes, the NPSS’s invaluable web master, and Anthony Lavietes, our assistant treasurer.
Functional Committees
The Conference Policy committee reported that our experiment with IEEE’s Meeting Planning group is going well. They have standard contracts with many major hotel chains and can use their bargaining power to get us better rates and better contract language in general.
Under Peter Winokur the descriptions of our awards in the TAB Awards and Recognition Handbook were rewritten and brought up to date, and the monetary value of many awards was increased. Peter was also instrumental in getting the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Field Award approved. A committee is now being formed to solicit nominations and another to select the first recipient. These will be committees with representation from a number of societies.
A big issue for the Membership committee is the retention of new members. Uwe Bratzler, the chair, Peter Clout, and Beverly Banks at IEEE HQ are working on this.
We officially have 15 NPSS chapters or joint chapters but some are chapters on paper only and have little activity. Chapter support is available and chapter chairs can discuss this with Steve Gold by e-mailing him at steven.gold@nrl.navy.mil or by phone at +1 202 767 4004. Only 6 Distinguished Lectures have been scheduled for 2009. There is funding for Chapters, Sections and Student Chapters to help bring these speakers to you.
The Nominations Committee under Jane Lehr is working on a slate to fill AdCom positions from the Radiation Effects, Radiation Instrumentation, Plasma Science and Applications, and Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences technical areas. Contact your technical committee chairs with suggestions.
We also had a visit from Bill Williams of IEEE-USA who spoke of their many activities in preparing white papers and other materials to educate the US Congress of key science and engineering issues, and to encourage support for R&D. His office helps coordinate the national congressional visits day and has many grassroots activities.
AdCom Actions:
- It was moved and seconded that NPSS withdraw from the Biometrics Council. This motion was tabled and John Luginsland and Jane Lehr will be temporary liaisons. See the President’s Report for an update.
- It was moved, seconded and passed that NPSS technically cosponsor the Bratislava Summer School. Many of our members are involved.
- It was moved, seconded and passed to add a GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Committee to our functional committees. Christoph Ilgner is the new chair and is starting to develop an action plan.
- It was moved, seconded and passed that AdCom endorses electronic AdCom elections.
It was moved, seconded and passed that the words “pulsed intense magnetic fields” and “electromagnetic launchers” be added to the NPSS Field of Interest. The Field of Interest will be revised and submitted for TAB approval with the next review and revision of our Constitution and Bylaws, which is being started under Bob Reinovsky.
- It is moved, seconded and passed that the NPSS budget $50k in 2010 to provide the following IEEE Meeting Planning Services:
- On-site services for NPSS sponsored conferences that currently have an approved budget.
- Long-range planning (site selection and contract negotiation) for NPSS sponsored conferences.
Albe Larsen, IEEE NPSS Secretary and Newsletter Editor, can be reached by E-mail at amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu. |
