Communication Theory Technical Committee Meeting
GLOBECOM '97
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Phoenix, Arizona


1. The meeting was called to order at 5:10 PM.

2. Joe LoCicero announced that Marvin Simon was nominated by our
 committee and won the 1997 Armstrong Award. The award was
 presented at the Award luncheon at GC'97. The citation for
 Marvin Simon is:

"For seminal contributions spanning three decades in the
design and analysis of novel coherent digital communication systems,
including synchronization and tracking, differential modulation
and signal design, spread spectrum techniques, and trellis-coded
modulation for fading channels."

 The committee is seeking volunteers to work in future award
 nomination processes.

3. Conference/Workshop Reports

GLOBECOM '97 (Phoenix, 11/2-11/7) (J. Livingston, K.
Ben-Letaif): John Sadowsky and Khaled Ben-Letaif
reported that everything went smoothly. Comments from
discussions that followed include:
- overlap between GLOBECOM and MILCOM was recognized.
- information regarding speakers who did not show up
to give their talks should be passed on to future
conferences for officials purposes.

CTMC-6 (Phoenix, 11/2-11/7, 1997) (N. Beaulieu, C. Georghiades):
Norm Beaulieu addressed the committee. 92 papers were received.
Six sessions were formed, each including 7 papers. Out of the
42 papers, 18 were from outside the US, and 8 from the industry.
There were 209 registrants. The median attendance for each
session was 59 (cf., about 49 the overall GLOBECOM).
Comments/suggestions from members:
- should have control of admission to sessions.
- should have a lower fee for student registration.
- should not even charge for registration (currently $60/$80
for advance/on-site registration) but need to charge for
conference records to recover prining costs.
- should impose a fee for internet access

Workshop '97 (C. Robertson, A. Polydoros, A. Kakaes):
The Workshop was successfully held in April 27-30, in Tucson,
Arizona.

ICC '98 (Atlanta, 6/7-6/11) (E. Sousa, G. Stuber):
Elvino Sousa addressed the committee. There were 550 papers
submitted. The acceptance ratio was 63%. 50 sessions will be
formed. The papers were allocated to the various committees
through a bidding process. The number of papers allocated to
Comm Theory was 101. The following 9 sessions were organized
by Comm Theory (with two sessions co-sponsored by the Signal
Processing and Communication Electronics):
Modulation and Coding -)11(Hoeher)
Iterative decoding)11(-)35(Robertson)
Multi-user detection -)11(Svensson)
Interferference Cancellation - Barness)
Multi-carrier)11(-)35(Fazel)
Equalization)11(-)35(Li co-sponsored with SPCE)
Blind Equalization)11(-)35(?)43(co-sponsored with SPCE)
Receiver Algorithms -)11(Chugg)
Synchronization)11(-)35(Win)
Session titles will be reworded to better reflect the main
focus of papers in each session.

GLOBECOM '98 (Sydney, Australia, 11/8-11/12, 1998) (B. Vucetic
K. C. Chen, and K. Rose) Branka Vucetic and K. C. Chen addressed
the committee. The deadline for paper and tutorial/workshop
submission is 2/13/1998. Electronics submission will not be
accepted, so the authors have to make sure they clearly indicate
the subject areas and/or technical committees of interest.
The session proposals include:
K. Fazel, Multi-Carrier Spread Spectrum)
J. Barry, Equalization)
U. Mengali, Synchronization)
A. Yongacoglu, Coding and Modulation)
G. Raleigh, Multicarrier for Non-Spread-Spectrum Systems)
N. Vojcic, Multiuser Detection)
D. Falconer, Space-Time Signal Processing)
M. Win, Propagation)
H. Sari, Multiple Access Techniques)

CTMC-7: (Sydney, Nov. 1998) (R. Kennedy and K. Ben-letaif)
Rodney Kennedy reported that everything was going well. Paper
submission will have the same deadline as GC'98. Sessions
will be nominated through the Web page; volunteers are welcome.

Workshop '98 (S. Miller, J. Winters, K. Dominiak): Scott Miller
gave a presentation to the committee. See a recent broadcast
email message (sent 11/19) for details regarding Workshop'98.

ICC '99 (Vancouver, Canada, 6/6-6/10, 1999) (P. Ho,
A. Yongacoglu, and G. Cairer). Vijay Bhargava is the Technical
Program Chair for this conference. Session proposals include:
S. Ariyavisitakul, Equalization)
U. Mengali, Synchronization)
G. Raleigh, Information Theory in Time-Varying Channels )
A. Goldsmith, Shannon-Like Capacity for Wireless)
G. Raleigh, Space-Time Signal Processing)
H. Sari, Multiple Access Techniques)
K. Fazel, Wireless Indoor Communications)
P. Roberson, Iterative receiver structure)

CTMC-8 (Vancouver) Y. Bar-Ness will be the General Chair.

Workshop '99 (West Coast TBA): C. Robertson will be the General
Chair. A. Goldsmith and L. Cimini will be the TPCs.

GLOBECOM '99 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) The committee is
seeking volunteers for TPC representatives.

4. TAC Meeting Report
E. Ayanoglu summarized the TAC meeting. There was a proposal
to merge ICUPC with Personal Communications Industry Association
(PCIA) trade show for years 1999 and 2000. This is an effort
to best represent wireless communications conferences within
ComSoc. Also, ComSoc will start special interim JSAC issues
on wireless communications in 1999 (4 issues/year, separate
from the regular JSAC). The new publication will have an
editorial board of its own, and will serve as a wireless forum
journal within ComSoc. If this interim journal is proved to
be successful, ComSoc may consider having regular Transactions
on wireless communications within 2 years thereafter.

5. Minutes of the meeting at ICC'97 were approved unanimously.

6. Other Businesses:
M. Medley reported the session proposals for MILCOM'98
and welcome suggestions and volunteers as session organizers

The mandate of current executives will end in 1998. Nomination
committee for new executives will be put up soon.

7. The meeting adjourned at 6:55 PM.