Minutes

2005 IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society (NPSS)

Nuclear and Medical Imaging Sciences Council (NMISC) Meeting

Meeting Date: October 28, 2005

Meeting Location: Gardenia Room, Wyndham El Conquistador Resort, Puerto Rico

Attendees: Roger Gearhart, Roger Fulton, Charles Watson, Jeff Fessler, Paul Kinahan, John Aarsvold, Sybille Ziegler, Todd Peterson, Magnus Dahlbom, Ron Jaszczak, Ron Keyser, Ben Tsui, Tom Lewellen, Chris Thompson, Grant Gulberg, Bill Moses, Alberto Del Guerra, Martin Tornai, Ron Huesman, Joel Karp, Tony Lavietes, Craig Woody, Christian Morel, Ed Lampo, Uwe Bratzler, Simon Cherry.

1. Welcome (Magnus Dahlbom)
• Magnus opened the meeting and introduced the agenda. He welcomed new members of the committee: Roger Fulton, Christian Morel, Todd Peterson, Martin Tornai and Charles Watson, and thanked the retiring members: John Aarsvold, Ron Huesman, Tom Lewellen (incoming Chair), Chris Thompson and Ben Tsui. Each committee member introduced themselves.
• A motion was moved to adopt the agenda – carried unanimously.
• A motion was moved to accept the 2004 minutes – carried unanimously
2. Final report on 2004 NSS/MIC (Alberto Del Guerra)
• Financial books were transferred to IEEE in July.
• Attendance was a new record of 1835 including approx 1000 members and 110 grantees (exhibitors etc). Approx same number of USA attendees as in 2003 but proportion was 30%, main increase in attendees was from Europe.
• 1669 abstracts were submitted, 1492 accepted. The MIC rejection rate was 16%, NSS 6%, no show was approx 5%, there were 940 posters, 750 of which were up throughout meeting.
• Main problem was publication delays. Budget surplus was one of the highest but this was due to lots of institutional support; income was $1,114k, final return to IEEE approx $222k.
• Sybille reported that the joint session was difficult to put together (selection of suitable papers) and that selection of best poster was too difficult. Martin suggested evaluate only premium posters.
• Bill mentioned that any NPSS conference can give out IEEE awards (2 for NSS and 2 for MIC) but payment must come out of conference budget.
3. Report on 2005 NSS/MIC (Tom Lewellen)
• 1267 registrants excluding exhibitors (and no RTSD this year), so after taking into account exhibitors and RTSD participants, attendance was similar to Rome.
• Total posters 651, orals were 300 for NSS, 50 for MIC, 22 for joint session, rejection rate was approx 16% overall (26% for MIC). Simon commented on large disparity b/w NSS and MIC rejection rates (<5% for NSS), discussion ensued on whether these should be regulated, but no consensus was reached.
• Transport and food costs have been high and will affect surplus.
• Traditional ratios of room nights to papers didn’t work at this meeting, original contract was for 2605 room nights, final number was approx 6300.
• Companion program worked well, tour operator was good, very flexible, approx 50% enrolled on site.
• 42 booths were contracted to 39 companies.
• Additional funds raised were $41,000, $15k from NIBIB, none from DOE and smaller than usual from industry.
• Projected return is approx 10% (on $900k budget).
• The meeting expressed its thanks to Tom and Simon.
4. Report on 2006 NSS/MIC (John Aarsvold)
• San Diego Town and Country has been selected again as the venue, Graham Smith is General Chair, John A and Bruce Hasegawa are MIC chairs.
• Room rate is $139 including free parking.
• Meeting will run from Oct 28 – Nov 5, MIC will have 1 plenary, 3 poster and 12 oral sessions, probably won’t have evening sessions.
• 3rd Workshop on Nuclear Radiology of Breast Cancer will also run in conjunction with this meeting.
• Strong preference expressed to MIC Chairs not to have parallel sessions. Craig Woody suggested we may be forced to adopt parallel sessions due to space/site restrictions. Discussion ensued on this topic; Ben expressed view that number of papers will continue to rise and rejection rates won’t change too much, therefore need to consider parallel sessions, also commented that it is not fair to poster presenters to cram so many in 3 sessions.
• Alberto requested more European involvement in scientific program, eg reviewers, session chairs etc.
5. Report on 2007 NSS/MIC (Ben Tsui)
• Venue is Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort, meeting will probably run from Oct 28 – Nov 3. Ben Tsui is General Chair, Ren-Yuan Zhu and Liyuan Zhang are NSS Chairs, Eric Frey and Magnus Dahlbom MIC Chairs.
• Ben’s preference is for parallel sessions so that conference can grow without too high a rejection rate.
6. Report on 2008 NSS/MIC site selection (Ron Keyser)
• Site selection committee visited 3 sites; Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg, and selected Dresden.
• The International Conference Centre Dresden and Maritim Hotel will be dedicated to our conference, wireless internet throughout, no transportation between sites needed but can use light rail for approx 8 Euro per person.
• Local support will be provided by Technical University Dresden (student volunteers etc).
• Several hotels are within 15 min walk, no prepayment, total rooms under discussion are 3100 / 6000 room nights. Dresden was chosen over other sites mainly due to cost (approx half on conference price compared with others).
• Discussion about the pros and cons of the Dresden site ensued. Craig Woody felt that the meeting space is just big enough if conference doesn’t grow from this year. Roger Gearhart believes meeting will fit in Dresden and will be attractive to eastern European participants. Tony Lavietes believes it will categorically not fit in Dresden if meeting remains same size as Rome, Ed Lampo concurred.
• After extended discussion, Magnus suggested that the way forward is for Uwe (General Chair 2008) to consider all the issues and decide whether meeting can be held at Dresden. If not, the site selection committee will need to come up with an alternative, e.g. Hamburg.
• Alberto commented that he is convinced that 2008 will be bigger than Rome. A lot of students attended Rome, they allowed for up to 1500 participants and 1835 turned up but they had a plan B, so he recommends to allow for growth and have a plan B/C.
• Uwe will consult Ron and Tony re space, have a another look at the Dresden site, make sure it can hold up to 1700 participants and make a decision within 7-10 days.
7. Report on 2009 NSS/MIC site selection (Ron Keyser)
• Consensus is U.S. east coast, site selection committee needs to choose site and general chair but won’t start work on this until 2008 site selection is completed.
8. Change to constitution (Magnus)
• Magnus reported that a change to the RISC and NMISC constitutions had been suggested; the suggested amendment is to form an oversight committee which will be a sub-committee of RISC and NMISC, responsible for long term planning of the NSS/MIC, including selection of the site selection committee membership and general chair.
9. Nominees for Vice-Chair (Magnus)
• Magnus advised that Christian Morel and Charles Watson have nominated for the position of Vice-Chair. Magnus and Steve to arrange a ballot.
10. Awards Sub-Committee (Jeff Fessler)
• Jeff has resigned as chair of this committee, Paul Kinahan has volunteered and will take up the position.
11. Communications Sub-Committee (Ron Huesman)
• Ron has agreed to stay on as Chair of this committee.
12. TMI Editor-in-Chief (Ron Jaszczak)
• Ron called for nominations for next TMI Editor, needs to be a person with interests that cross medical imaging, signal processing etc (i.e. SPS or EMBS as well as NPSS), rather than exclusively an NPSS person. Send suggestions to Ron.
13. Awards (Jeff Fessler)
• Jeff suggested awards be given out more often.
• Ben moved that NMISC formally request permission from AdCom to award the Young Investigator and Medical Imaging Scientist awards every year. There was some discussion about the motion and Paul modified the motion to read that only the Young Investigator Award be given every year.
• After further discussion Paul withdrew his amendment and a vote was taken on the original motion (seconded by Paul), that we request permission from AdCom to award the Young Investigator and Medical Imaging Scientist awards every year. The motion was carried (1 abstention).
14. Meeting closed.