On Friday November 13, 1998, the Nuclear Medicine and Imaging Sciences Council (NMISC) met at noon at the Westin Harbor Castle Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during the 1998 IEEE NSS/MIC. In attendance were: John Aarsvold, Anna Celler, Simon Cherry, Steve Derenzo, Grant Gullberg, Ed Hoffman, Ron Huesman, Joel Karp, Ron Jaszczak (Chair NPSS), Paul Kinahan, Mike King, Craig Levin, Bill Moses (Chair RITC), Les Rogers, Manbir Singh, David Townsend, Ben Tsui, Miles Wernick (Chair NMISC Award Committee), Gary Wong Absent were: Randy Brill, Marie Kijewski, Orhan Nalcioglu The meeting was called to order by Anna Celler, Chairperson of the NMISC. Dr. Celler announced the results of the 1998 election for members to the NMISC. The following were elected and will serve for three years (January 1, 1999, to December 31, 2001): Ronald H. Huesman, Ph.D. Joel S. Karp, Ph.D. Michael A. King, Ph.D. Craig S. Levin, Ph.D. Wai-Hoi (Gary) Wong, Ph.D. A total of 174 ballots of 1930 sent were returned to IEEE. John Aarsvold encouraged NMISC members to suggest candidates for the next election and noted that no one presently on the council can run in the next election. This implies that more effort will be needed to find nominations. Review of the annual report submitted by NMISC Chairperson was conducted. Two corrections to the report are noted: 1. In paragraph 1, the report should read d) Miles Wernick, Randy Brill, Joel Karp, Mike King, and David Townsend for serving on the 1998 NMISC Awards Committee, 2. In paragraph 5, the report should read The award includes $1500 and a plaque. During review of the annual report, several items were noted and discussed. The council directed the secretary of the council to contact Larry Zeng regarding possible updates to the NMISTC website. The updates that the council wished to have considered were: 1. links to job descriptions of jobs being offered in medical imaging; 2. links to academic and industrial research laboratories involved in medical imaing; 3. links to research laboratories that have employment opportunities; and 4. a list of email addresses for NMISC members and links to home pages of those council members with webpages and a willingness to be linked. Council secretary, John Aarsvold, agreed to talk with Larry and to communicate options to Paul Kinahan and then to the NMISC. It was reported that the 1999 NSS/MIC will be held at the Westin Seattle in Seattle, WA, USA, October 23-30, 1999 (MIC 27-30). Grant Gullberg is the 1999 MIC Chair; Larry Zeng the MIC Deputy Program Chair; Tom Lewellen the Local Arrangements Chair; and Orhan Nalcioglu the NSS/MIC General Chair. An short/preliminary report was given on preparations for the 2000 NSS/MIC to be held in Lyon, France. The meeting will be shorter than in previous years and will have more overlap of the NSS and MIC. Organizers of the meeting had proposed that the name be changed to avoid the use of nuclear. The general consensus of the council was that to do so would be detrimental to the meeting as a whole. A request was made for additional volunteers to assist in the organization of the conference. The general chair of the 2000 NSS/MIC is Patrick Le Du (ledu@hep.saclay.cea.fr). NSS/MIC 2001 will likely be held on the west coast of the USA. The general chair of the 2001 NSS/MIC is Tony Lavietes (lavietes1@llnl.gov). By general consensus, the financial component of the Medical Imaging Scientist Award was raised from $1500 to $2000. This was done to make the award consistent with other quality awards given by the IEEE. The money for this award comes out of the general MIC conference budget. It was suggested that the NMISC should make an effort to get a member of the NMISTC elected as the general chair of the NPSS AdCom. The NMISTC component of NPSS is substantial and it is realistic to consider making such an effort. Anna Celler nominated Joel Karp for the position of NMISC Chairperson Elect for 1999, NMISC Chairperson for 2000 and 2001, and NMISC Past Chairperson for 2002. The nomination was seconded by Ed Hoffman. Joel Karp was elected unanimously for the position. Anna Celler asked Miles Wernick to serve again as the NMISC Awards Committe chair. Miles agreed to do so. He asked that nominations for the 1999 IEEE NMISTC Young Investigator Award be prepared as soon as possible. Ed Hoffman and Ron Jaszczak indicated that NMISTC representation at NPSS AdCom meetings is important if the NMISTC is to influence policy and financial issues that come before AdCom. There was general consensus that every effort should be made to have NMISTC representation at every AdCom meeting. If possible, the NMISTC representative at AdCom meetings should be the NMISC Chairperson; however, any NMISTC member in good standing--not just any NMISC member--can carry the proxy for the Chairperson. It was decided that if the NMISC Chairperson could not attend every effort would be made to find another member of the NMISC or NMISTC who could. To minimize the expense of attendance, it was suggested that for each meeting a proxy who is within driving distance be found.