Globecom 2002
November 19, 2002
Taipei, Taiwan
Meeting chair: Sergio Benedetto
Meeting minutes recorded by Tolga Duman
0- The meeting was called to order at 5:30 PM.

1- Sergio Benedetto reported that
- "Recertification" (a process taking place every three years by the Technical Activities Committee of the Society) of the Communication Theory Technical Committee is almost complete.
- The emerging technologies technical committee will publish a bimonthly column in Comm. Magazine on emerging technologies starting December 2002
- There is a need for proposing new JSAC special issues (all members are invited to send new proposals to the Editorial Board).

2- Sergio Benedetto reported on discussions that took place in the Board of Governors concerning the relationship between technical committees and conferences (this was reported during the Technical Activities Committee (TAC) meeting in Taipei). In response Celia Desmond, ComSoc President, has put together an ad-hoc committee to look at this issue. First preliminary conclusions were reported during the TAC meeting:
- All Technical Program Committees of GICC Conferences should contain at least one representative from all Technical Committees, to favor communication flow between TPCs and TCs
- To minimize the problems involved in identifying Symposia number and names, all GICC conferences should contain both a general conference (with at least 50% of the sessions) and few specialized symposia on hot topics.
- The names of Symposia Chairs should be chosen on the basis on a list prepared by the Chairs of involve TCs by the TPC Chair and TCs Chairs.
On the second point, Sergio Benedetto reported his disagreement expressed during TAC Meeting concerning the figure of 50% (it would be better to let the figure free for choice to the TPC), and the fact that Symposia should be on hot topic: indeed, the Communication Theory Symposia have been among the most successful in the past, yet it is difficult to state that Communication Theory is a hot topic. This position received consensus from the participants.

3- Conference reports were then presented:
For Globecom 2002, Taipei, Tawan: Keith Chugg mentioned that 268 papers were handled and 31 % was the acceptance rate. For the decisions a purely numerical algorithm is used, and 11 sessions of 8 papers each are formed. He also mentioned that the software used (EDAS) worked quite well except for some hacking problems (that resulted in the loss of some papers reviewed within a one or two day period).

For ICC 2003, Anchorage, Alaska: T. Duman mentioned that the comm theory papers in the general conference were handled. He didn't mention any statistics since the exact number of comm theory related papers was not known (various people handled the papers), and there were some papers that decisions were not made on yet (some gray area papers). The results should be announced in a couple of weeks. For the Comm Theory symposium, there were a total of 254 papers out of which 96 were accepted (38 % acceptance rate). 24 half sessions of 4 papers each are formed. The overall scores for the accepted papers were above 3.8, there were some discussions on the papers averaged about 3.7. There were 25 TPC members each handling about 10 papers.

For Globecom 2003, San Fransisco: R. Blum (on behalf of A. Haimovich and H. Boelcskei) mentioned that the call for papers is ready, and everything is on track. Des Taylor made a general remark that it looks like Globecom 2003 organization is pretty loose and every symposia will run their own show. There does not seem to be a very specific set of guidelines.

For ICC 2004: Everything is on track, we also still have time.

For 2003 Comm Theory Workshop: T. Duman mentioned that everything is on track including the budget issues and session organizer identification.

Comm Theory workshop 2004: Proposal by S. Benedetto is accepted. The workshop will be held in Capri Island, Italy. Exact time will be determined based on the end of the low season in the island and possible conflicts of the potential participants. May 9-12 was mentioned as a possible date, but not finalized. The committee asks those who know in advance of possible conflicts as being members of organizing committees or similar to send an e-mail message to: and .
Comm Theory Workshop 2005: Proposal for Park City, Utah (by C. Schelegel) seems to be accepted. Dates will be finalized.

4- Volunteers for Future Conferences Sergio Benedetto mentioned that the Communication Theory Technical Committee Website and Mailing-List are being updated on a regular basis. The section on Volunteers has a Website at: http://www.comsoc.org/~comt/ It currently reads as follows: The Committee relies on volunteers offering their time and skills for organizing Symposia and/or for representing the Committee at the various conferences of the IEEE Communications Society Conferences : ICC, GLOBECOM, and MILCOM. To be considered as a candidate, a volunteer must: 1. Be a Committee Member 2. Have reached a reasonable "visibility" in his/her research field 3. Intend to participate to most (if not all) of the conferences (ICC and Globecom) that precede the one he/she is interested in 4. Devote the due time to work with the TPC of the conference for the success of the event, and with the Committee Officers for the visibility of the Committee in it. Based on the offers, nominations for symposia organizers and Committee representatives will be put forward at the Committee meetings in due time.
It has been mentioned that there is still a need for volunteers for ICC 2005. For Globecom 2004 (Dallas, November 2004) N. Al-Dhahir (ATT-Shannon Lab) and Brian Hughes are the co-chairs.

5- Sponsorships The technical committee also agreed on being a technical sponsor for:
* First Workshop on Ultra-Wide Band Systems (June 2-4 2003, Oulu, Finland) http://www.cwc.oulu.fi/home/IWUWB.html Contact person: Dr. I. Opperman
* 8-th International Symposium on Spread Spectrum Techniques and Applications (ISSSTA 2004, Sidney, 2004) Contact person: Dr. I. Opperman

6- The meeting adjourned at 6:30 p.m.