Minutes of the 2000 NMISTC meeting Wednesday, October 18, 2000: noon - 2pm. Lyon, France Submitted by Joel Karp, Chair of the NMISTC 1. Elections - not yet determined, but it's worth reviewing (in the minutes) the terms of the current members, and adding the newly elected members to the list. 2. Selection of vice-chair for NMISC - Ron Jaszczak volunteered, and was elected by the steering committee. I suppose we should have tried to solicit someone new, but I can't argue with the advantage of Ron's experience. One nice advantage of having Ron is that he is willing to go to AdCom meetings, and AdCom will allow an alternate in place of the Chair of technical committees, as long as it's in their constitution. So, we should remind Bill to change our constitution to allow the vice-chair, or past chair, to serve as an alternate to the chair for the AdCom meeting. This will allow them to vote at the meeting. 3. Report on 2000 meeting from Stig and Patrick - Admittedly, there were problems with this meeting, many of which were related to the unexpected large crowds. Still there were some unrelated problems - like the very confusing program booklet, arrangement of posters, etc. More importantly, we should reach a consensus on whether or not we want to preserve the tradition of not having parallel sessions. I do. Others should give input to Ben Tsui, MIC chair for 2001. Overall, though, the conference went well, and the quality of papers was good. So, we shouldn't complain too much. It is expected that the 2004 meeting will be in Europe, so it is important to learn from this meeting in France and also how to carry-over the planning of 2001-2003 in the US to 2004 in Europe. 4. Report on 2001 meeting - San Diego, General chair, Tony Laveites, MIC chair, Ben Tsui. Ron Huesman brought up the fact that the 3D Fully reconstruction meeting will be one week before. That may have negative impact on the MIC meeting, because some people will have to make a choice. It brings up an interesting question, though - should Ben rearrange the MIC meeting to take place at the beginning of the week? An even more interesting question is the following. At the AdCom meeting, Bill Moses asked if NPSS would sponsor the 3D meeting, if Ron decides that he wants it. Ron has not yet decided (though he must do so very soon), and Bill did not have enough information at AdCom regarding the budget, so AdCom did not vote. However, this is an issue that should discussed by our committee (via e-mail) - is it in our best interest to sponsor (co-sponsor) the 3D meeting, and then try to carry on the tradition from here forward? Are most people familiar with the history of this conference? Basically, it's been run every other year, starting in 1991, alternates between Europe and the US., is self-supported (but, with some industrial and grant support), typically has 100-150 participants, and has been very successful. There is only one session, the talks are longer (~25 minutes), and include both theoretical and experimental papers. Talks span topics from Nuclear Medicine to CT. So, there are differences between this conference and the MIC, but there is also significant overlap. Any comments? 5. Report on 2002 meeting - Norfolk, General chair, Joel Karp, MIC chair, Paul Kinahan. Not much to discuss yet. J. Karp did select an NSS chair (Nigel Lockyer at U.Penn) and a treasurer (T. DeVol, Clemson Univ.). 6. Report on 2003 meeting - The committee made 3 suggestions for MIC chair, Mike King, Bruce Hasegawa, and Larry Zeng. John Aarsvold approached Bruce, who politely declined, and Joel Karp approached Mike, who politely accepted (by long-distance telephone). These two were approached before Larry, since Larry had already served with Grant Gullberg. Although Salt Lake City in one of 3 potential sites, it seemed reasonable to give someone new a shot at organizing the MIC program. Besides, Larry needs time to prepare the entertainment. 7. We discussed the need to coordinate with RISC the selection of the site selection committee. This committee selects the site, and the general chair of the NSS/MIC meeting. Glenn Knoll, Chair of RISC, is in full agreement with this, and discussed this issue at the RISC meeting, the following day, and at the AdCom meeting on Saturday. From the NMISC, Stig Larssen, Ron Huesman, and Craig Levin volunteered to serve on this committee. Sibylle Ziegler was not present, so we volunteered for her. Since the 2004 meeting will likely be in Europe, it is important to have strong European representation on the site selction committee. 8. Awards committee - Harry Barrett won for Imaging Scientist. 9. TMI editor selection (starting 2002) - There was support for Mike Vannier from our committee, and Ron suggested that we recommend to AdCom that NPSS support him, since NPSS is one of the four major constituants of TMI. 10. Journal bundling - Ed Hoffman discussed the possibilities of unbundling the MIC papers in TNS, so that they can appear on Medline. He offered to investigate a method for doing this. 11. Selection of NMISC secretary - Craig Levin volunteered and was elected by the steering committee. It is essential that John Aarsvold train Craig to do as fine a job as he has done. Personally, I applaud John for his work, without whom, the chair would flounder. 12. IEEE fellows from NMISTC - We should be more active in nominating fellows for IEEE. One must already be a senior member, and then only fellows can write recommendations. Personally, I would like to nominate Gerd Muehllehner. In my view, he has the credentials for this honor. At AdCom, it was stated that there is only about a 30% chance to be elected the first time around, and 50% after several tries. So, we do have to be selective. It is not clear to me if we should only select one candidate, or more.