NPSS President
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| Peter S. Winokur NPSS President |
The second NPSS AdCom meeting of 2001 was held on July 21 in Vancouver, BC, CANADA, the site of the 2001 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference. The morning was largely focused on reports from the technical committees, highlighting conferences and publications, and a few functional committees. Consistent with the international nature of our Society, the NPSS is hosting several conferencesoutside North America. The 12th Real Time Conference was recently held in Valencia, SPAIN, the week of June 4-8. In 2003, the International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS) is planned for Korea, while the 2004 Nuclear Science Symposium/Medical Imaging Conference is considering a site in Italy. This year, ICOPS and the Pulsed Power Conference combined to attract more than 1000 attendees in Las Vegas the week of June 17-23. To accommodate the 800 abstracts submitted to the conference, the technical program occupied 4½ days including 45 oral sessions, four sessions of posters, and five plenary sessions.
I’m pleased to announce that an NPSS Chapter of the Benelux Section was officially formed on February 26, 2001. Dr. Pedro M. Almeida is the chapter chair. The chapter has 51 charter members from Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. I’m also pleased to announce that an NPSS Chapter of Central & South Italy Section was formed on May 22, 2001. Dr. Alessandro Rizzo will serve as its first chair.
Under the able direction of its Chairman, Ron Jaszczak, the Awards Committee announced the selection of the 2001 NPSS Society Awards: Steven Holland for the Merit Award, Vernon Price for the Shea Award, Paul Dodd for the Early Achievement Award, and Hugo W.A.M. de Jong, Kelly Hahn, Clay Holdsworth, and Craig Wilsen for Graduate Scholarship Awards. Congrats! There are many members in NPSS who are deserving of these awards, so please consider nominating a colleague next year.
I want to extend my personal thanks to Peter Clout, under whose direction our newly formed Communications Committee produced a truly professional NPSS brochure that has already been distributed at 5 meetings this year. The brochure will be distributed to all NPSS members in the coming months. It makes a strong case to join NPSS and will be used to promote the Society and attract new members. Next up for the Communications Committee is a revamping of the NPSS web site.
The afternoon at the AdCom meeting was devoted to IEEE finances and membership issues. Our Division IV Director, Peter Staecker, provided a report on the IEEE Board of Directors Meeting (BOD) recently held in Beijing, CHINA. At that meeting, the BOD formally adopted a 2002 budget that introduces “New Financial Thinking” across the entire IEEE in light of ‘deficit budgets’ that led to a 12% reduction in Society reserves in 2000, and threaten a reduction twice as large in 2001! The BOD stipulated that the 2002 budget must:
In the aggregate, increased revenues and reduced expenses, along with a reduced dependence on investment gains, should result in an improvement of the IEEE bottom line of approximately $28M, the amount necessary for a balanced budget. The budget will assume an investment return of 5%, far more conservative than the 9% used in prior year budgets. Bottom line: expenses will not exceed revenues.
In addition, the new financial model more properly allocates expenses among users. A methodology was adopted that
Hopefully, organizational units (e.g., NPSS) will have a better understanding of the cost of IEEE services they use. The objective is to help organizational units make more prudent business decisions as well as to identify opportunities for organizational process improvements.
The current 2002 budget has a recommendation to increase IEEE member dues by US$15. At this time, NPSS membership of US$15 includes print and electronic access through Xplore to either the Transactions on Nuclear Science (TNS) or the Transactions on Plasma Science (TPS). A member can subscribe to both TNS and TPS for an additional US$10. In addition, a member subscription to the Transactions on Medical Imaging (TMI) is US$24. Note these costs are well below the non-member subscription price of approximately $500. Beginning in 2002, the NPSS AdCom will follow the practice of most other IEEE Societies by unbundling dues from publications. For 2002, AdCom approved the following fee structure:
$5 Basic
Membership (must be IEEE member)
$25 Permanent NPSS Membership (must maintain IEEE membership)
$15 Print Subscription to TNS
$15 Online Subscription to TNS
$24 Print and Online Subscription to TNS
$15 Print Subscription to TPS
$15 Online Subscription to TPS
$24 Print and Online Subscription to TPS
$24 Subscription to TMI (includes print and online access, set by
TMI Letter of Agreement between NPSS, EMBS, SPS, UFFCS)
$19 Print Subscription to Sensors Journal (set by Sensors Council)
$19 Online Subscription to Sensors Journal (set by Sensors Council)
I attended the TAB (Technical Activities Board) meeting held in New Brunswick, NJ on June 20-23. At this meeting, NPSS submitted a proposal for a new journal, the Transactions on Nuclear Imaging and Medical Sciences (TNIMS) to TAB Periodicals for endorsement and subsequent approval by TAB. This journal would contain papers from our Medical Imaging Conference, as well as contributed papers. It was a sound proposal put together by our Vice President Ed Hoffman. Paul Dressendorfer, TNS Editor, gave an excellent presentation to the TAB Periodicals Committee, and Ed Hoffman joined Paul during a highly contentious Q&A. At the formal TAB meeting the following day, we lost our bid for TNIMS by a vote of 29-19. Questions remained about the overlap of TNIMS with the TMI and whether NPSS had exhausted efforts to fully explore alternatives with our sister Societies that cosponsor TMI with NPSS. We’ll be revisiting TNIMS with the Engineering in Medicine and Biology, Signal Processing, and Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Societies over the next few months as we attempt to rewrite the Letter of Agreement that governs the operation of TMI.
Several other issues were raised at TAB that will no doubt be on our radar screen in the months and years ahead. Perhaps none is more challenging than how IEEE markets its products and the implications of that marketing on IEEE infrastructure, e.g., the role of Societies. The potential for ‘virtual’ journals that combine articles from several publications under a general heading or bundle like wireless, packaging, medical imaging, etc., may be the wave of the future. Although the IEL, i.e., the IEEE/IEE Electronic Library, is IEEE’s flagship product, how will it play in a world of single-article sales? Will IEEE be able to compete with commercial publishers like Elsevier?
I serve on the TAB Products Committee where we attempt to answer many of these questions. This year, IEEE expects non-member revenue from its publications of approximately $70M; note that Elsevier Science, the leader in our end of the publishing business, has nearly $900M in sales. IEL sales continue to exceed expectations, both in terms of revenue generated and new business acquired. Many of our customers recognize the exceptional value offered by IEEE products that are priced at 50% of the competition. IEEE’s Conference Proceedings Package remains popular because it offers the most recent, state-of- the-art work being done by our members in the field of electrotechnology – 48% of all downloads from the IEL are for conference proceedings! Online single article sales are still planned for later this year, but issues of delivery and pricing are being worked out. IEEE needs to invest in Xploreä, its delivery mechanism. At this time, individual subscribers are unable to access Conference Proceedings and Workshops through Xploreä. Hopefully, that access will be made available in 2002. IEEE pricing strategy is constantly under review. Overall, it’s IEEE policy that the smallest unit of sale should have the highest per unit price.
I welcome your comments, suggestions, and feedback. Please drop me a line or call me using the contact information below.
Peter Winokur, NPSS President, can be reached at Office of Senator Reid, 528 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, 20510; Phone: +1 202 224-3542; Fax: +1 202 224-7327; E-mail: p.winokur@ieee.