On behalf of the Technical Program Committee, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 2006 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium. This year we had 889 abstract submissions from 47 countries. This is up very slightly from last year’s 876 submissions. The number of abstract submitted to group 1 (Medical Ultrasonics) grew significantly and now represents nearly 45% of the total number submitted. The general format of the meeting has been left unchanged from previous years with one day of short courses followed by three days of oral and poster presentations. However, to reflect the increased number of abstracts from group 1, two additional oral sessions for medical ultrasonics were added on October 5 and 6. We have also increased the number of posters by 20% which allowed an increase in the acceptance rate to almost 80%.
One of the hardest jobs for the Technical Program Committee was to select the finalists for the student paper award. After much discussion, the Technical Program Committee identified 18 finalists from a very strong pool of abstracts. The student finalist posters will only be displayed on the first day of conference (October 4) so make sure you set aside some time to see these posters.
I have enjoyed serving as the Technical Chair for the 2006 Symposium and I look forward to meeting many of you in Vancouver.
Best Regards,
Geoff Lockwood
2006 IEEE Ultrasonics Symposium Technical Chair