Communication Theory Technical Committee Meeting
GLOBECOM '98
November 10, 1998


1. On behalf of the Communication Theory Technical Committee Chair Peter
 McLane, the meeting was called to order at 5:50 PM by the Vice Chair
 Ender Ayanoglu.

2. Conference Reports

* GLOBECOM '98 (Sydney, Australia, 11/8-11/12, 1998) (B. Vucetic K. C.)6 L
Chen, and K. Rose) Branka Vucetic addressed the committee. Our
committee sponsored 11 sessions (out of 89 total) during GLOBECOM '98.
The sessions are (title, chair, number of papers)

1) Modulation and Coding I, J. Yuan, 8
2) Multicarrier and OFDM, H. Sari, 8
3) Error Control Coding, L. Wei, 7
4) Modulation and Error Control Coding, V. Bhargava, 5
5) Spread Spectrum Multiple Access, S. Glisic, 7
6) Synchronization, A. Ogawa, 9
7) Synchronization, D. Falconer, 9
8) Modulation and Coding II, S. Pietrobon, 8
9) Advanced Receiver Architecture, D. Di Zenobio, 8
10) Multiuser Detection and Coding, P. Rapajic, 8
11) Genetic Alg., Neural Comp. & Fuzzy Applications, J. Elmirghani, 6

Branka Vucetic stated our sessions were well-attended in general.
Desmond Taylor stated that although the technical program of the
conference was good, the logistics were very bad. There was general
agreement with that statement. Marvin Simon questioned the wisdom of
a university in Melbourne organizing a conference in Sydney. Branka
Vucetic stated that transportation to and from Sydney is easier
whereas Monash University in Melbourne has an office that
organized conferences in the past, although those were smaller
domestic conferences.

* CTMC-7: (Sydney, Australia, 11/8-11/12, 1998) (R. Kennedy and )6 L
K. Ben-Letaif) Khaled Ben-Letaif reported that the mini-conference
was going well. There were 88 submitted papers, 48 of which were
accepted to form 6 sessions. Most of the papers that could not
be accommodated in the mini-conference were passed to the main
conference and got accepted. The sessions in the mini-conference
are (title, chair, number of papers)

1) Fading Channels, N. C. Beaulieu, 8
2) Equalization, R. Kennedy, 8
3) Multiuser Detection and CDMA Systems, P. Rapajic, 8
4) Iterative Decoding, P. Robertson, 8
5) OFDM, N. Ansari, 8
6) Modulation and Coding, A. Sheikh, 7

Sergio Benedetto commented that although the papers were of good
quality in general, there were some irrelevant papers in the
mini-conference. Khaled Ben-Letaif explained there was pressure from
the conference to accept many papers and added the Technical Program
Committee tried to do their best to group accepted papers
appropriately.

* ICC '99 (Vancouver, Canada, 6/6-6/10, 1999) (P. Ho, A. Yongacoglu, )6 L
and G. Caire). Paul Ho addressed the committee. He stated that there
are altogether 7.5 sessions sponsored by Communication Theory, of which
two are joint sessions. The acceptance ratio is about 40%. The
sessions are (title, organizer, chair, co-sponsor if any)

1) Turbo Codes, D. Haccoun, D. Haccoun
2) Coding Techniques, A. Guilliver, S. Benedetto
3) Modulation and Coding I, G. Caire, P. Y. Kam
4) Modulation and Coding II, A. Yongacoglu, J. Lodge, Radio Comm.
5) Multiuser Receiver and Interference Mitigation, P. Ho, W. Kryzmien
6) Equalization and Synchronization, J. Huber, J. Cavers
7) Performance Analysis, C. Tallambura, E. Panayirci, Personal Comm.
8) Multicarrier and OFDM, H. Sari, H. Sari, 1/2 session

Paul Ho emphasized that the names are tentative, pending
approval by the conference.

* CTMC-8 (Vancouver, Canada, 6/6-6/10, 1999) (Y. Bar-Ness) Yeheskel )6 L
Bar-Ness is the general chair. This is the first CTMC to be held at
an ICC. The information received from Yeheskel Bar-Ness was
summarized: The mini-conference received 55 papers. The papers were
reviewed by a technical program committee consisting of 7 members.
CTMC-8 plans to form 6 sessions. The titles and chairs will be
decided shortly. It is expected that the sessions will have a
minimum of 5 papers each. The mini-conference charges will be C$90
for regular registration, C$120 for on-site registration, and C$30
for an extra copy of the Proceedings.

* GLOBECOM '99 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 12/5-12/9, 1999) (E. Biglieri)
GLOBECOM '99 is being organized in the form of a collection of 9
symposia and a main conference. Communication Theory is one of the 9
symposia and its chair is Ezio Biglieri. An initial technical
program committee is formed. Our committee is co-sponsoring the
symposium on Advanced Signal Processing for Communications. A
request for a Communication Theory representative for the main
conference will be made via e-mail.

* ICC '00 (New Orleans, Louisiana, 6/18-6/22, 2000) This conference is
in the process of being organized. Local arrangements are made
but the structure of the conference is still in question. A
request for a Communication Theory Committee representative
will be made via e-mail.

3. Workshop Reports

* Workshop '99 (Aptos, California, 5/23-5/26) (C. Robertson,
A. Goldsmith, L. Cimini) The report received from the organizers
was summarized: The location for this workshop is the Seascape
Resort, Aptos, California. Room rates are $150 per night,
early registration is $500. The technical program will consist
of five sessions with six talks per session (15-20 minute
talks with 5-10 minutes for questions) in the general areas of

1) Iterative Techniques
2) Adaptive Techniques
3) Implementation/Hardware
4) Networks
5) Special Topics

Tentative session chairs have been identified, and will be confirmed
by mid-November. The speakers for each session should be in place
around the end of the year. The goal is to make the workshop very
interactive with lots of discussion. It will be requested that the
talks present up-to-the-minute research results. In short, it is
desired to differentiate workshop talks from conference talks as
much as possible. This will be emphasized to both the session chairs
and the speakers.

Sergio Benedetto commented that the 15-20 minute talks are too short
and that time should be extended. Several attendees agreed with this
statement.

* Workshop '00 (Florida) (D. Schilling, R. Pickholtz, K. Dominiak)
The organizers are still looking for a location. Further information
will be provided via e-mail.

4. Announcements

 - Our nominee Donald Schilling received the 1998 Armstrong Award of the
 IEEE Communications Society. In previous years, our committee has
 nominated David Forney for the Christoforo Columbus award and Marvin
 Simon for the Armstrong Award. In all three cases, our nominees
 won the awards we nominated them for.

 - Summary of the TAC (Technical Activities Council) meeting:

* Nominations for all IEEE Communications Society awards can be made
by any IEEE Communications Society technical committee, any
member of a technical committee, or any member of the IEEE
Communications Society. See the URL http://www.comsoc.org/~awards.

* The new IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, of three societies)
of the IEEE (Signal Processing, Communications, Computers) is looking
for associate editors. Send your nominations to the committee
secretary.

* A new committee of the IEEE Communications Society, the Technical
Committee on Emerging Technologies and Hot Topics, is looking for
volunteers. Contact Stamatios Kartalopoulos, kartalopoulos@lucent.com
if you would like to volunteer.

* Membership Programs Development Director of the IEEE Communications
Society, Savo Glisic, is looking for volunteers. The goal is to
increase the number of members of the IEEE Communications Society
by 100% in two years. If you would like to volunteer, contact
Savo Glisic, savo.glisic@ee.oulu.fi.

 - There was a discussion on the request by the IEEE Communications Society
 1999 Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC '99)
 Technical Program Chair Jerry Gibson. Jerry Gibson requested the
 Committee's support, in a form to be determined by the Committee. The
 subject of sponsorship by the Committee was raised. Several of our
 members indicated that WCNC is a conference of the IEEE Communications
 Society and that individual technical committees do not sponsor IEEE
 Communications Society conferences. After some discussion, the
 Committee decided to pledge its full support of WCNC '99. Our
 members who would like to help with the technical program of WCNC '99
 should get in touch with Jerry Gibson, gibson@seas.smu.edu.

 - Marvin Simon addressed the committee on behalf of the New Chair Search
 Subcommittee of the Committee. With the term of the current cabinet
 ending at the end of 1998, the Subcommittee was formed to elect the
 new chair of the Committee. Marvin Simon read the memorandum
 prepared by the Subcommittee (attached) and asked for the
 endorsement of the chair-elect Ender Ayanoglu. The endorsement was
 approved. Ender Ayanoglu is requesting volunteers to serve on the
 new cabinet. If you would like volunteer a member, send e-mail to
 ender@lucent.com.

5. The meeting adjourned at 6:52 PM.

--------------

IEEE Communications Society)22 L

Memorandum)29 L

TO: Communication Theory Committee

FROM: New Chair Search Subcommittee

DATE: October 8, 1998

RE: Caucus for New Chair of the Communication Theory Committee

 Following past procedures of the Communication Theory Committee, a
new chair search subcommittee was formed after ICC'98. This subcommittee
is chaired by the past chairman (Larry Milstein) and contains several
other senior committee members, typically past officers (Peter McLane
and Joe LoCicero, in this case). The subcommittee is charged with soliciting
nominations at large, and acting as a caucus for the new chair of the
Communication Theory Committee, whose term is to last for 3 years (1999
through 2001, inclusive).

 A call for nominations was made at the Communication Theory Committee
Meeting in June 1998 at ICC'98, and a broadcast e-mail call was sent to
all members by Larry Milstein in August 1998. The names of all nominees were
forwarded to Larry Milstein, and nominations were closed on Sept. 15, 1998.

 The subcommittee caucused for the "chair-elect", and selected Ender
Ayanoglu, who subsequently accepted the position. The "chair-elect"
will generally ask other committees members to serve as officers in
his or her cabinet, as well as seek volunteers for officer position at the
next GLOBECOM (in this case, GLOBECOM '98). The accepted procedure to
conclude the new chair search process is to have the Communication
Theory Committee endorse the caucus "chair-elect" at GLOBECOM.

 Since none of the members of the New Chair Search Committee are able to
attend GLOBECOM '98, they have asked Marv Simon to bring this to the
Communication Theory Committee, and chair the end of the committee meeting,
at which time the committee endorsement is sought for the "chair-elect",
Ender Ayanoglu.