2001 IEEE AP-S International Symposium and USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting

Boston, Massachusetts July 8-13, 2001
Sheraton Boston Hotel
https://www.ieeeaps.org/2001APSURSI

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ELECTRONIC FILE SUBMISSIONS

Fonts. There are many different bitmapped and scalable outline fonts that are available for use with modern word-processing and manuscript-preparation tools. The TPC asks that all authors give strong consideration to use of the Adobe Type 1 Times Roman and/or Helvetica (or the TrueType equivalents Time New Roman and/or Arial) font families in the main body of their submission. Doing so will not only give a more uniform look to the printed volumes, but it will also ensure that the CD-ROM version of a document can be viewed and printed on the widest range of systems. Authors are encouraged to use bold and /or italic type for emphasis and to avoid the use of underlining in their documents.

Color. The use of color in illustrations, plots, and pictures is strongly encouraged by the TPC. However, contributions must be received using black text on a white background. Also, authors should be aware that scanned images are usually produced, as default, using 24-bit or 30-bit color. The result is that 3 or more bytes are used to represent the color for each ‘dot’ in the scanned image. Inclusion of such scanned images in a document will result in very large files that ultimately must be transmitted via the Internet to the TPC. It is usually unnecessary to scan images at very high resolution. The TPC’s suggestion to authors is to scan color images at a resolution between 75 and 150 dpi and then to reduce them to 8-bit color. Image editors such as Corel PhotoPaint and PaintShop Pro (https://www.jasc.com/) can be used to reduce the color depth of scanned images. Numerous other image editors are available that can reduce color depth.

The digest and volumes will be available as black-and-white books. Given this, authors are strongly encouraged to produce their color figures and plots so that they are viewable (and therefore useful) on both a color device and on a monochrome compatibility when displaying color data on a plot is to use two attributes for lines. Curve A might be red with a dashed line while curve B might be blue with a solid line. Or, curve A might be red with solid square markers and curve B might be blue with open-circle markers.

File Format. As mentioned, the acceptable binary file format for use in electronic submission is *.pdf (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format). Other types of format do not translate reliably. The use of the *.pdf format is simply an indication of the TPC’s available machinery for processing author submissions. For example, since all submissions will be converted to PDF, authors who send in their contribution in PDF format bypass the need for their submission to be converted by the TPC. The use of this option gives authors total control over how their abstract or summary will look. Plus, *.pdf files are typically very small in size and hence are less problematic when transmitted over the Internet. Submissions that arrive in other format may be converted to PDF by the TPC staff if possible. However, it is possible that other versions used by an author can’t be processed. In this event the author may be notified and informed that it is necessary to resubmit a file. TPC staff will attempt to accommodate all authors. In some instances, it may be necessary to electronically scan the paper from the camera-ready hard copy.

Another issue regarding acceptable file format is that the TPC is prepared to accept only a single file representing an abstract or summary. Hence, all illustration and figures must be embedded within the file along with the main body of text. The entire file will be converted PDF and placed on the CD-ROM and included in the printed digest. This requirement has also resulted in the decision that MS-Word, TeX and LaTeX files are unacceptable for electronic file submission.

How to produce *.pdf files? Many authors are likely wondering how they can produce a *.pdf file file.

To produce *.pdf files, one can purchase Adobe Acrobat. The TPC is not recommending that all authors purchase the Adobe Acrobat software for the purpose of submitting a contribution to the conference. However, authors may still want to consider owning this software for a variety of reasons. Briefly, *.pdf files are not editable and are very compact. This means that one can share work such as papers and reports with others without fear of the work being modified. It is possible to include rich content such as movies and sound. The Acrobat reader, needed by one who does not own the Acrobat creation tool, is free and available on just about any platform. Authors employed by educational institutions can buy Adobe Acrobat at a very low academic price at Cyberian Outpost, found on the web at

https://www.outpost.com.

  In creating the .pdf file, for example, in MS Word use "File", "Print", then select Acrobat PDFWriter and "ok" which will create the *.pdf file. Additional help in creating .pdf files can be readily found on the internet by using a search engine.

PDF files can also be generated by using "Create Adobe PDF Online" https://cpdf1.adobe.com/index.pl?BP=NS which is a Web-hosted service that lets you convert a wide variety of documents (including Microsoft Office files, Corel WordPerfect files, PostScript files, Web pages, graphics formats, and other file types) into Adobe PDF files. The "Create Adobe PDF Online" may be available as a Free Trial service.

File Naming. The TPC is expecting between 900 and 1200 summaries and abstracts to be submitted to the Boston conference. With electronic file submission a management issue arises when multiple authors submit files having identical and common names such as ‘abstract.pdf’, ‘summary.pdf’, ‘paper.pdf’, or ‘boston.pdf’. The TPC suggests that authors employ naming conventions based on the initials of the first author or those of multiple authors. For example, files names such as ‘aqm1202.pdf’ or ‘lwpspc.pdf’ are better choices than those listed previously.

Important Addresses

Electronic file and camera-ready paper submission of abstracts and summaries for the 2001 Boston AP-S/URSI Symposium will open November 15, 2000 and will continue until close of business on **January 27, 2001**. Authors should use the following address for submission:

January 27, 2001 for electronic file copies