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Glenn F. Knoll
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First, I would like to issue a universal call for volunteers. The Radiation Instrumentation Technical Committee (RITC) consists of those members of IEEE/NPSS who share a general interest in instrumentation for the detection and measurement of ionizing radiation. The Radiation Instrumentation Steering Committee (RISC) is a 21-member group that carries out the administration of policies that are considered to be in the best interests of the members of RITC. Of the RISC members, 5 are newly-elected to 3-year terms each year. I invite any of you who share these technical interests to suggest names to me of IEEE/NPSS members who would be willing to stand for election to this committee in future years. Self-nominations are certainly welcome.
The planning for the annual IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium/Medical Imaging Conference (NSS/MIC) has been the major task of RISC. The next conference will be held in Lyon, France, October 15-20, 2000. This occasion marks the first time that this meeting has been convened outside North America in its history. An energetic organizing committee with representatives from many different European institutions has been hard at work carrying out the planning for the symposium, and I am confident that the meeting will be a great success.
This occasion has triggered a discussion of the pros and cons of scheduling future NSS/MIC meetings overseas. The IEEE has repeatedly stated its objective to be a truly international organization, but its roots are clearly in the U.S. Some of us are experienced (read old) enough to recall when the present IEEE/NPSS structure emerged from special interest groups within the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The Nuclear Science Symposium was established early in the 1960s, having evolved from IEEE meetings on scintillation (and then semiconductor) detectors. I claim to have personally attended every Nuclear Science Symposium since 1966 with one exception. (When I was immodestly boasting of this record several years ago, Lou Costrell brought me up short by simply stating: "I've attended them all"!) For many years, the NSS included dedicated sessions on medical instrumentation, and this part of the meeting gradually increased in importance through the 1970s and 80s. It eventually became obvious that a self-standing conference on medical imaging would be viable, and the MIC is the result of this evolution. We are unique in holding a single symposium in which new developments in radiation instrumentation are presented in a venue that is combined with the latest research in medical imaging. No other conference has this synergistic combination of topics, and the registration statistics support its widespread appeal. The NSS/MIC is clearly the preeminent meeting of its type held anywhere in the world, and the fraction of non-U.S. participants has been growing because of its international stature.
That brings us to the central question: Should we consider holding the NSS/MIC at overseas sites on a regular schedule in future years? There has already been an expression of interest by European members in hosting the meeting again as early as in 2003. It may be surprising to some that we have already begun the planning process for the 2003 NSS/MIC because of the long lead time needed to obtain the best terms from U.S. hotels. Thus it may be difficult to consider another European site so soon, but at the time of this writing we have not ruled out that possibility. There is also the broader question of whether sites in Asia or other parts of the world should also be given some consideration.
There are obvious advantages to sites in countries outside the U.S. in extending the reach of the NSS/MIC to include more of our international colleagues. But there is also a danger of making attendance by U.S. members more difficult. We all know about the recent travel restrictions imposed on our colleagues at U.S. national laboratories, and sites overseas will probably inhibit the possibility of attendance for some of these members. Costs of traveling to meetings at foreign sites will also likely be somewhat higher than those for U.S. locations, although the differences may be smaller than first anticipated. Will a European location make it more or less likely that our colleagues from other international regions will attend? Will the past group of commercial vendors who have been loyal supporters of the conference be as enthusiastic about a non-U.S. location, and what level of participation can we expect from regional vendors? Some of these potential concerns can only be answered after the registration statistics and other experiences from the Lyon conference are in hand.
I invite your input on these questions as we hold a general discussion concerning the location of future NSS/MIC conferences. The effects of dramatically changing the past patterns of the meeting sites must be evaluated carefully, and we need a broad sampling of members' feelings on this question.
Let me know your opinions on what I consider to be one of the most important issues facing the NSS/MIC in its distinguished history.
Glenn Knoll can be reached at the University of Michigan, University of Michigan, 2355 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2104; Phone: (734) 936-0121; Fax: (734) 763-4540; E-mail: gknoll@umich.edu