The IEEE NPSS Administrative Committee met on 25 July 2009 at the Québec Hilton, in Québec City following the NSREC meeting.
Our treasurer, Ed Lampo, reported that Tony Lavietes, our assistant treasurer, was preparing a conference-closing procedure with a check list to help facilitate timely conference closings. A budget submission process is also being developed. Despite all the economic turmoil of the last 18 months, and the need to lend IEEE money for its pension fund, NPSS is still solidly in the black. It has to do with well-run conferences, conservative financial planning, careful monitoring, and also excellent journals and conference records that maintain their popularity.
Craig Woody, NPSS President, noted that Harold Flescher was the recipient of the 2009 Emberson Award, one of IEEE’s most prestigious Institute awards, and that the presentation ceremony was impressive. Bill Moses was asked to serve on the TAB Conference Committee that helps set oversight policy for our conferences. Our Five-year Society Review was highly successful, with only a quibble about strategic planning activities. We use our retreats for strategic planning, and Craig has asked Bob Reinovsky, NPSS Vice President/President-elect, to be our strategic planning liaison with IEEE. Our next retreat will be held in March 2010.
A hot topic at TAB just now is technically cosponsored conferences. IEEE has had an overwhelming request for technical cosponsorship of various conferences, according to John Vig’s presentation at POCO (the Panel of Conference Organizers) this past summer. A memorandum of understanding between the IEEE entity and the conference is now mandatory, as is a statement of what the IEEE Operating Unit’s precise involvement is to be. A conference is defined as any meeting with a budget greater than $25,000. Publishing a proceedings or conference record also has financial implications. TAB has also approved two new journals, the Biometrics Compendium and Reviews of Biomedical Engineering. These may include articles from our fields of interest, but they may also be in conflict with TMI and with TNS.
Craig Woody also urged the Technical Committees to add tags to the new IEEE Technology Navigator which is a search tool under development that is expected to have impact on membership. Craig also reiterated that travel expenses will only be reimbursed by December 31 of the year in which they are incurred.
Technical Committee Reports:
CANPS has reported on the successful RT-2009, the 16th of the conference series, held in Beijing. They are gearing up for the 17th conference in 2010 in Lisbon, Portugal. The conferences have been changed from odd to even years to minimize conflict with ICALEPCS.
The combined 2009 Fusion Engineering and ICOPS Conferences were held in San Diego in June and both were successful despite some papers being withdrawn because of the H1N1 virus threat. For the first time ever, papers from Fusion Engineering are being submitted to IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science for consideration for publication. It is expected that there will be a special issue of the journal related to fusion technology. Fusion and ICOPS will collocate again in 2011, in Chicago the week after the Pulsed Power conference is held in the same venue. The 2010 ICOPS will be held in Hampton Roads, VA, and the 2012 conference will be held in Edinburgh, Scotland in late May. In 2013 there will be another PPST conference to be held in San Francisco combining ICOPS, Pulsed Power and possibly Fusion.
The 17th Pulsed Power conference was held in Washington, DC and was a success, with attendance over 500, despite recurring visa problems for Russian attendees. Remember that visas need to be applied for early. Processing takes more time than one might like. Randy Curry, who was Program Chair this year under Frank Peterkin, will become General Chair in 2011, with Bryan Oliver as Program Chair. Selected papers will be submitted for consideration in a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science.
The 2011 Particle Accelerator Conference will be held in New York City at the Marriott Marquis with Tom Roser of BNL as General Chair. The first US-held IPAC will be in New Orleans in 2012. The 2013 PAC will be on the west coast, and the 2015 PAC will be in Richmond, VA.
The 2009 Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects conference ended on July 24, the day before the AdCom meeting in Québec. Registration for the conference and short course combined was over 500. This is the second time that NSREC has been held in Canada, and attendance was higher than in 2001, and more exhibit booths were sold, although there were fewer exhibitors. There was a significant increase in the number of Canadian attendees, but the principal attendee groups were from the US and France. Advice from Mark Hopkins, the General Chair: if you are holding a conference outside the US, be sure to keep careful watch on the currency exchange rates.
The 2009 Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical Imaging Conference will have been held in Orlando, Florida by the time this Newsletter is published. There will have been 8 days of short courses and conference papers, and over 1400 papers presented. There is also a Women in Engineering function, and the first-time presentation of the Valentin Jordanov travel grants.
Functional and Appointive Committee and Liaison Reports
The Conferences Committee, chaired by Bill Moses, has some money available for our conferences to work with IEEE Conference Services for planning, site selection and conference closing issues, on a trial basis.
There have been changes in some of the Award forms on line. If you are nominating candidates for either NPSS awards or for any of the prestigious IEEE awards, be sure to get the correct forms and work on them in a timely way. There is also a new Engineering in Biology and Medicine (EMBS) IEEE Medal for Innovations in Health Care Technology. The Curie Award, sponsored by NPSS, will seek its first nominations in 2010. There have also been some changes in the Fellow Candidate Evaluation committee. New members include Paul Chu from Hong Kong, Erik Heijne from CERN, and Jean-Luc Leray from CEA, France. The review process is now fully electronic. March 1, 2010 is the deadline for receipt of 2010 Fellow applications.
Membership in NPSS has increased over 14% since February, which is a very impressive gain.
We welcome new chapters in Seoul, Korea and in Toronto, Canada, bringing our chapters to two in Asia and seven each in Europe and North America, with one more North American chapter pending. Steve Gold, the Chapters chair, is developing a Chapters reporting form. A completed form is a prerequisite for all Chapter funding requests.
Sean Gillespie is now our Publications liaison at IEEE as Allison Larkin has moved into a position with more oversight responsibilities.
Our new brochures, prepared by the Communications Committee under Peter Clout, are now available and have been distributed. We now keep membership booths, prepared under Communications, in both Europe and the US. Large posters proved very effective at the Real Time Conference in Beijing, were easy to transport and hang, and were inexpensive so could be left behind. Also, the web site has been redesigned and has a fresh new look.
Albe Dawson Larsen, NPSS Secretary can be reached at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory MS66, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94015 USA; Tel. +1 650 926-2748; Fax: +1 650 926-5124; E-mail: amlarsen@slac.stanford.edu. |
