IMDSP TC Minutes: ICASSP 2004

IMDSP TC Minutes, May 20, 2004
ICASSP-2004
Montreal, Canada

(0) Attendance:

Jean Luc Dugelay, Sheila Hemami, Cormac Herley, W. Clem Karl, Janusz Konrad, 
Benoit Macq, Antonio Ortega, Thrasos Pappas, Luis Torres

Guests: Alex Kot (ICIP-04), Lina Karam.

We did not have a quorum (9 voting members present, out of 34)

(1) ICIPs:

ICIP-2004 (Singapore, October 24-27, 2004)
Report by Alex Kot (General Chair):

- 2000+ papers submitted, 916 accepted

- Early registration ending on June 20

- This year the organizers' experience with special sessions was
somewhat mixed. Papers in all the special session were submitted to
the same review process as other papers and in a few instances several
papers submitted to a special session were rejected which means that
some special sessions are smaller than others. Alex Kot suggested that
a more active involvement from the TC in generating proposals for 
special sessions would be desirable. 

ICIP-2005 (Genoa, Sept. 11-14)
Luis Torres gave a brief update on behalf of the organizers, who
were unable to attend. 
- Budget being discussed with IEEE
- Hotel arrangements also in progress

ICIP-2006 (Atlanta), ICIP-2007 (New Orleans)
No reports 

ICIP-2008

No formal proposal submitted yet, a group led by Rama Chellapa is 
working with CMS and looking at several venues. One possible location
is Baltimore, with same venue as ICME 2003. 

ICIP-2009

Benoit Macq expressed some initial interest in organizing 
this conference in Brussels, in collaboration with others in 
Belgium and the Netherlands. 


(2) IMDSP workshop

- There was a lengthy discussion about the need, format and future of
the IMDSP workshop. Some members felt that our TC needed to resume
holding workshops, as one of the few TCs that has not held one
regularly over the last few years, others felt that having a well
established conference such as ICIP voids the need for a workshop
covering a broad range of topics.

- There was a general consensus that there would be strong support 
for workshop proposals that focus on emerging areas (distributed
signal processing and media content protection were areas mentioned). 

- Thrasos Pappas pointed out one of the useful features of SPIE
conferences, namely that in a single venue several parallel
conferences can take place. Each of these conferences is single track
and has the focus of a workshop. It was suggested that one possible 
model for the IMDSP workshop would be to hold in conjunction with 
an ICASSP or ICIP; nearby location, same week or right before/after. 

- In summary, we are still looking for a few good workshops... 

(3) Awards 

- A brief update of the ongoing paper award nomination process was
provided.

(4) IMDSP TC Elections (members)

- Because the TC didn't hold an election a few years back no member 
are retiring at ICASSP next year (4/05) while 11 will be retiring the 
following year (4/06). To avoid having to elect 11 new members in one
year Thrasos Pappas suggested holding an election for 5 members this
year and 6 members the following year. This was thought to be a good
idea by those in attendance. Antonio Ortega will poll the TC to 
see if there is a general agreement before proceeding with this 
schedule. 

(5) Conference Registration Fee Waivers for Volunteers 

- Thrasos Pappas brought up the issue of volunteers who attend only
the TC and other administrative meetings at a conference (i.e., they
have no papers to present) and whether they should have to pay 
conference registration. The Conference Board is considering such a 
fee waiver for CB members. 

(6) New TC on Biomedical Signal Processing 

- A brief update on this new TC was provided. Founding members have
been elected and process is moving along smoothly.