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IEEE NPSS Administrative Committee met in Albuquerque, NM on June
23, 2007, on the weekend between the PPPS conference and the collocated
Symposium on Fusion Engineering, and the Particle Accelerator Conference,
PAC’07, held the following week. As we met during the Science
Weekend, we took a field trip to see how this event was doing. It
was thriving and tremendous fun as well as educational, and a great
community contribution. This is something more of our full-week
conferences should consider as part of our education and outreach
effort.
Our treasurer reminded us that conferences are not closing in a
timely way. This is important for several reasons, principal among
which being the potential loss of not-for-profit status. An easy
remedy is to use IEEE’s concentration banking and to have
IEEE pay outstanding bills left after 3 months. Close your local
bank accounts, if any, and turn in to Ed and Tony Lavietes, and
then IEEE the best available financials you have, and work with
them and IEEE to wrap it all up. It really seems as if most conferences
aren’t closed out because of some obscure bill or other that
the treasurer is waiting to pay. IEEE Conference Services are also
working with Ed Lampo and Tony Lavietes on new software that will
help facilitate early closing of conference finances. Tony is also
working on developing a treasurer’s web site that will have
a uniform budgeting process for our conferences and that will map
into IEEE’s reporting requirements. This should create a simplified,
more open process that will facilitate approvals and periodic reporting
and reviews, deal with different currencies, and help to accelerate
closings. Jane Lehr, our President, has appointed Craig Woody to
head a committee to look further into these late closing issues.
Tony also reminded us that the IEEE NPSS ‘Network Shop’
has wireless network systems, computers, LCD projectors, microphones
– wireless, hand held, mixers, badge printers with dedicated
computers that are available for use by our conferences. Using our
own equipment, rather than renting it, generally is significantly
less expensive than the rental from hotels or their AV suppliers.
Money from the use fee goes into an IEEE concentration banking account
and is used to upgrade equipment as it is needed. Some of this money
will be used to support upgrades to the conference paper software
used by Bo Yu at Brookhaven, through an agreement with the lab.
Ed Lampo expects our 2007 financial returns to be good, but in outlying
years this situation will change due to changes in funding indirect
infrastructure costs and the move to more open access electronic
publications, among other things. CERN is working with IEEE NPSS
on a scheme to provide TNS as an open access journal. There are
still many hurdles to clear before this becomes reality.
Another issue that affects our off shore conferences is VAT –
the value added tax charged by many governments on all sorts of
things from hotel rooms to exhibit hall rentals, to exhibitors’
fees and conference registrations, and everything between. Ed Lampo,
Uwe Bratzler, Ray Larsen, our conference policy chair, and I went
to the Panel of Conference Organizers meeting in Vancouver because
this issue, a focus of this workshop, is now being examined by IEEE
headquarters, the Technical Activities Department, and Conference
Services, since more and more IEEE conferences are being held outside
the North American regions, which is appropriate given that close
to half our membership comes from these regions. Each conference
and society has handled VAT differently. The goal is to find a standard,
legal way of dealing with it that will be used across all IEEE-sponsored
conferences.
In 2008, NPSS will offer its members free electronic access to our
conference proceedings. See Bill Moses’ article below.
Conferences held thus far in 2007 – NSREC, Real Time, Pulsed
Power and Plasma Science, Fusion Engineering, and PAC have all been
highly successful, as has the SCINT conference which we sponsored
this year at Wake Forest. See the reports in the preceding sections.
All these conferences offer awards for outstanding work, and the
AWARDS section details many of these. The June 2007 issue had stories
on the Plasma Sciences award winner, Dr. Yitzhak Maron, and the
three PAC award winners, Drs Michael Harrison and Satoshi Ozaki,
and Dr. Victor Malka. Our Society Awards have been announced and
will be covered in the March 2008 Newsletter. The upcoming NSS/MIC
conference in Hawaii has already shown record abstract submittals
and hotel room pick up. It looks as if it will be another huge success.
And, as seen above, plans for 2008 in Dresden are well in hand.
As Peter Clout mentions below in the Communications Committee report,
membership gains have been very encouraging. Between the February
and June AdCom meetings, 203 new members were added. That growth
continued at PAC and we expect a significant number by end of year.
A highlight of PPPS which contributed to gains at that meeting was
a members-only reception. A key issue for us is to discern what
benefits our members would like to see. What is important to you?
What would encourage your colleagues to participate? Let Peter Clout,
Jane Lehr or me know and we’ll bring your interests to AdCom.
Hal Flescher reported that the new paradigm for funding IEEE indirect
infrastructure costs had been accepted. These are the costs of doing
business that are not easily identifiable as belonging to one group
or another. As mentioned above, this will impact us financially,
but the extent is as yet unknown.
Steve Gitomer, our Transactions on Plasma Sciences editor-in-chief,
reports that in 2008 there will be 9 special issues of the journal,
and that there are now six senior editors in place. Two more are
needed for specific topic areas. Steve is working on this. The IEEE
Publications Department and our editors are all working to shorten
time to publication, and to increase our impact factor. You can
help by returning reviews, or returning corrections more rapidly.
One of the biggest contributions to slow turnaround has been the
time authors take to complete and return their paper modifications.
As ever, Communications (see article below) is always looking for
new ideas, and especially for great photos. Keep this in mind and
send items to Peter Clout for his archive. The next brochure will
be produced for 2009, but if flyers or leaflets for specific things
are needed or would be useful, let us know.
Patrick Le Dû, our Transnational Conference Liaison, is working
with Ray Larsen and others to develop guidelines for non-North American
conferences so we don’t reinvent things each time. This is,
of course, tied to the work by IEEE mentioned above. One hopes that
an integrated protocol that works smoothly in most regions of the
world will be developed before too long. The Transnational Committee,
also involved with this area, especially with recruiting international
membership and through CIO, with promoting our conferences on the
international scene, has now made a push to encourage eastern European
membership and participation.
The Coalition for Plasma Sciences continues to be active, and participated
in the PPPS-PAC Science weekend. They continue their Capitol Hill
presentations and K-12 education efforts. They also have a video
in the making and have asked for NPSS assistance. Again they will
present an award at the National Science Fair, and are looking for
help here. Keep up with their web site. They are a vital and important
organization.
Allan Johnston, our liaison to IEEE’s Women in Engineering,
reports that their activities are encouraging and more are becoming
involved. They helped to fund the WIE reception held at PPPS.
AdCom Actions:
• It was moved, seconded and passed to authorize expenditure
of up to $75,000.00 (including previous expenditures) for development
of web-based conference budgeting tools. Development of web site
and associated software is to be done by Cybersense. Progress will
be monitored by Anthony Lavietes, with payments released accordingly.
• It was moved, seconded and passed that the deadline for
submission of IEEE NPSS awards will be January 31st of each year
starting in 2008. Nominations shall be limited to 10 pages.
• The 2008 Megagauss topical conference is to be organized
in Novosibirstk, RF by the Lavreyentev Institute of Hydrodynamics
and is “technically cosponsored” by the NPSS through
the Pulsed Power Science and Technology Committee.
• It was moved, seconded and passed that the NPSS match a
grant from the Megagauss Institute Inc, with up to $5K (NPSS funds)
to support publications, publicity and student activities at Megagauss
2008.
• In honor of Dr Arthur Guenther who passed away in spring
2007, it was moved that the NPSS request TAB approval to designate
the existing Pulsed Power Student Awards as the “Arthur Guenther
Pulsed Power Student Awards.”
• AdCom approved the expenditure of up to $20k for re-drawing
of IEEE 325 standard illustrations.
• It was moved, seconded and passed, that AdCom authorize
expenditure of up to $5000 in 2007 for the purchase of plasma equipment
for outreach activities.
The next AdCom meeting will be held on November 3, 2007, at the
Hilton Hawaiian Village.
Albe Larsen can be reached at amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu.
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