Nuclear Medical and Imaging Sciences Council (NMISC) of

the Nuclear Medical and Imaging Sciences Technical Committee (NMISTC) of

the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society of

the IEEE

Minutes of the Annual Meeting held on

November 9, 2001 from Noon-2pm

Esquire Room

Town and Country Hotel

San Diego, CA

 

The meeting was called to order by Joel S. Karp, NMISC Chairperson

 

Members and newly elected members present:, Magnus Dahlbom, Margaret Daube-Witherspoon, Lars Eriksson, Ron Huesman, Joel Karp, Craig Levin, John Engdahl, Ron Jaszczak, Bill Moses, Bradley Patt, Michael King, Paul Mardsen, Charles Stearns, Gary Wong, Larry Zeng,

Members absent: Sibylle Ziegler, George Zubal, Marijana Ivanovic, Steven Meikle

Others in attendance: Ed Hoffman, Ben Tsui, Eric Frey, Anna Celler, John Aarsvold, Paul Kinahan, David Townsend, Robert Miyaoka, Alberto Del Guerra.

 

 

1.     Welcome remarks (J. Karp, NMISC Chair)

 

2.     Membership roll call (C. Levin, NMISC Secretary)

 

New members:

Eric C. Frey, Marijana Ivanovic, Paul Kenneth Marsden, Bradley E. Patt, Gengsheng Lawrence Zeng, were introduced with terms ending December 31, 2003.

 

Newly elected members:

This years election results were in time for the meeting and the newly elected members were introduced: Magnus Dahlbom, Lars Eriksson, Margaret Daube-Witherspoon, Steven Meikle, and Charles Stearns are the newly elected members with terms from January 1, 2002 - December 31, 2004.

 

3.     Overview of 2001 IEEE MIC meeting (B. Tsui, E. Frey, MIC conference chair and co-chair):

 

Attendance:

301 out of 320 abstracts that were submitted to this year's MIC were accepted (rejection rate of 9%).  The number of registered attendees with MIC indicated as primary interest was 398 out of 925 for the whole conference.  It was noted, however, that there were many MIC attendees that did not indicate MIC on the on-line registration form and were counted as NSS attendees, since that was the default.  So probably there were many more MIC attendees than 398. This year ten companies contributed to student travel awards for students to attend.

 

Format:

This year's meeting extended 4 days rather than three to avoid the multi-format, parallel sessions.  Oral sessions were 12 minutes + 2 minutes of questions. Guided tours were given this year through the poster sessions.  Complaints were that the oral presentations were rushed and the space was tight.  The plenary session was broken into two this year.  There were two outside physician-scientists who gave a medical perspective and two outstanding individuals from our scientific community speaking about SPECT and PET.

 

Short Courses:

Although MIC related short courses were set two days before MIC began, there was a good attendance.  The Analytic Reconstruction short course had ~20 enrollees and Statistical Reconstruction had > 50. There were 27-37 attendees for the other short courses. The short course cost was $125 per course for members.

 

4.  Preview of Next YearÕs (2002) IEEE NSS/MIC Meeting in Norfolk, VA (J. Karp, General Chair, P. Kinahan, Chair MIC, R. Miyaoka, Co-Chair, MIC).

 

The MIC and NSS chairs have met to discuss the issue of poster sessions for next yearÕs meeting.  Both NSS and MIC will be doing poster tours.  There will be a local outreach program to bring high school students to the meeting.  The 2002 MIC chair Paul Kinahan will be firming up plans in February.  Any input should be forwarded to him as soon as possible.  Suggestions that were made regarding the 2002 meeting:

-MIC posters should remain up for the duration of the conference (Ron J.).

-MIC program reviewers should be more selective of posters and oral talks and reject more abstracts than this year (9% were rejected) (Anna C.).

-Posters should be setup adjacent to commercial exhibitors since they want more foot traffic (Alberto D.)

-The conference days should be shifted over the weekend to accommodate more presentations (John E.)

Ron J. noted that next yearÕs conference will overlap with the 2002 Engineering in Medicine and Biology conference.

 

5.     Preview of 2003 NSS/MIC meeting (M. King, MIC chair)

 

-no comments or discussion

 

6.  Preview of 2004 NSS/MIC meeting in Italy (A. Del Guerra, General Chair)

 

Sites in Florence and Rome were strongly considered.  The general consensus was that Ōthe hearts went with Florence but the minds selected RomeĶ.  Ergife Palace Hotel in Rome has been chosen.  Just outside of (15 minute bus ride to) Old Rome.  The hotel boasts 1000 rooms, (~110/120USD/night for double room, single/double occupancy, including breakfast).  The hotel has 15,000 m2 of convention space (~3 times that of the San Diego Town and Country Convention Center).

 

7.     Candidates for 2004 MIC Chair (J. Karp)

 

The motion to nominate Sybille Ziegler to serve as the 2004 Chair was unanimous.  Sybille was chosen since she is knowledgeable about the MIC, has a relatively large staff to support her, and resides in Muenchen, Germany (not too far from Rome).

Potential Alternates:  Paul Marsden and Michel Defrise.

 

8.     RISC/NMISC Joint Roles (G. Knoll, Chair RISC)

 

It was decided that the merging of RISC and NMISC tasks regarding the conference was a good idea.  However, in order for NSS to recognize MIC component of the meeting on equal footing, they must share all responsibilities for the conference preparation. The first issue discussed was site selection.  A motion was made to form a joint NSS/MIC site selection committee with Bill Moses as chair.  Bill Moses was nominated and unanimously voted in as the first official NSS/MIC site selection committee chair.  Both NSS and MIC community members will be represented in this committee.  Another responsibility discussed regarding the joining of RISC and NMISC tasks was joint reporting to AdCom regarding potential problems associated with the conference.  The two groups would also work together to choose a general conference chair.

 

9.     Officers of NMISC (J. Karp)

 

Joel KarpÕs term as NMISC chair ends December 31, 2001.  Although Craig LevinÕs term with the NMISC also terminates Dec. 31, 2001, he will stay on as secretary.  Margaret Daube-Withersopoon was nominated and voted in as the new Awards Chair.  It was noted (by R. Jaszczak) that the requests for Awardee checks and plaques should be made first to the NSS/MIC general Conf. Chair and Treasurer. The NPSS Treasurer, Ed Lampo, should probably be copied. Of course, any NPSS Award requests should be directed to the NPSS Awards Chair for processing and approval. There are other NPSS society wide awards that are available to MIC members such as the merit award that are rarely applied for.  For more information on all IEEE NPSS awards see the IEEE awards manual at www.ieee.org.

 

10.  Transactions on Nuclear Science modification proposal (E. Hoffman)

 

Ed Hoffman has suggested that we form a medical component of TNS called TNS-B as a separate issue from TNS that covers just the medical imaging component.  There would be a choice to submit to TNS or TNS-B.  The Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society representatives strongly opposed this motion at a recent AdCom meeting.  As an alternate, it was suggested that conference instrumentation papers go to TMI as a special edition.  EMBS rejected that idea as well.  One motivation for this motion was to have the term ŌmedicalĶ attached to a journal so that it appeared in medical journal searches.  The medically oriented papers appearing in TNS do not currently show up in such searches.  It was suggested that Ed contact the major library search entities to investigate the possibility of including TNS in medical searches.

 

11.  Other business

 

Briefing on recent AdCom meeting (B. Moses)

It was decided at the recent NPSS AdCom meeting that copies of TNS will NOT be included anymore as part of the conference registration fees.  The TNS will only be available to members of IEEE NPSS.  The main sources of income/finances of the IEEE NPSS were listed as conferences, publications, investments, and dues, in that order.

 

NMISC Bylaws review committee

Bill Moses has also volunteered to chair a review committee to update the NMISC bylaws.

 

 

Submitted by Craig Levin, Secretary, NMISC