Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC)
29 November 2006
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. CTTC Service Award Nominations are due 15 February 2007. Nominations should be sent (via email) to the CTTC Vice Chair who also serves as the Awards Chair. (This is Andrea Goldsmith until 1 January 2007. The new Vice chair and secretary will be announced in December 2006.)
2. Conference and workshop reports were given for Globecom 2006, ICC 2007, Globecom 2007, ICC 2008, CTW 2006, and CTW 2007.
3. There is an immediate need for a proposal for CTW 2008. Please contact Michael Rice, mdr@ee.byu.edu.
4. Scott Miller of Texas A&M University was elected CTTC chair for 2007-2008.
DETAILED MINUTES
Meeting called to order at 7:00 PM
Costas Georghiades, Chair, conducting.
A. Goldsmith announced that CTTC Service Award Nominations are due 15 February 2007. The award will be presented at the 2007 Communication Theory Workshop.
REPORTS
The following conference reports were given:
1. Globecom 2006: E. Serpedin explained that the Communication Theory Symposium accepted 108 submissions, rejected 161 submissions, with 74 submissions withdrawn. The accepted submissions were organized into 16 regular sessions and 1 poster session. The 40% acceptance rate was approximately the same for all symposia. The minimum review score threshold was 3.65. The Communication Theory Symposium was the third largest symposium.
A discussion followed regarding the topical overlap between the different symposia. E. Ayanoglu pointed out that there are many symposia with the same sessions. M. Win informed the committee that this issue was raised in a TAC meeting and that there an effort to define a set of non-overlapping topics for the different symposia. We were informed that GICC will make a decision on this recommendation in the near future.
2. ICC 2007: M. Uysal told the group that 192 manuscripts had been received. The intention is to accept about 80 papers organized into 10 oral sessions of 6 papers each and 7 poster sessions with 20 papers. The target acceptance rate is 41%. 49 Symposium TPC members handled the review process. The papers for all symposia were scored using the formula
Score = 0.2 x relevance & timeliness + 0.3 x technical content & correctness
+ 0.3 x novelty & originality + 0.2 x quality of presentation.
The most popular topics continue to be in coding:
Topic number of submissions
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Low Density Parity Check Codes (LDPCs) 31
Space-Time Coding and MIMO 28
Turbo codes and other type of channel codes 24
Relaying/Cooperative transmission 22
OFDM 16
CDMA 12
Notification of acceptance is 10 January 2007. A. Goldsmith recommended that the acceptance date be advanced 5 days to 5 January 2007 because the ISIT submission date is 8 January 2007. (Many of the CTTC members normally attend both the Comm Theory Symposium and ISIT. Because the ICC 2007 and ISIT 2007 completely overlap, these people will have to choose which conference to attend. In many cases, paper acceptance will be the deciding factor.)
3. Globecom 2007: S. Ulukus informed the committee that 60 symposium TPC members have been appointed and 19 topical areas were listed on the symposium call for papers. The submission deadline has been set at 15 March 2007.
4. ICC 2008: N. Beaulieu informed the committee that the second version of the symposium call for papers is out. The symposium TPC is currently being formed. 85 invitations have been sent out. 52 have accepted the invitation so far. The target TPC size is 80 because it is anticipated that a large number of submissions will be received. The paper schedule has also been established: submission deadline, 15 Sept 2007; notification deadline, 10 Jan 2008; camera-ready submission deadline, 28 Feb 2008. 31 Topics have been included on the symposium call for papers. GICC approved the logo and motto (“Farther, Higher, Stronger”).
The following Workshop Reports were given:
1. CTW 2006: M. Rice (for B. Aazhang) explained that CTW 2006 was a success. The workshop focused on the interplay between communication theory and networking. Each day began with a plenary talk. The talks were “What’s in Sensor Networks for Communication Theorists?” by Anthony Ephremides, “Cocks in Wireless Networks” by P. R. Kumar, and “Energy and Interference in Wireless Sensor Networks” by H. Vincent Poor. The technical program included invited sessions on "Cross-Layer Design" (organized by Andrea Goldsmith), "Cooperative Communications" (organized by Hesham El Gamal), "Sensor Networks" (organized by Greg Pottie), "Network Information Theory" (organized by Gerhard Kramer) and "Network Coding" (organized by Emina Soljanin). Monday evening featured the poster session containing 21 contributed papers (organized by Robert Heath and Sriram Viswanath). The workshop banquet was held on Tuesday evening where the winners of the Communication Theory Technical Committee (CTTC) Outstanding Service Award were announced. Robert Lucky, Jack Salz, and Don Schilling received the award for their vision in initiating the communication theory workshop and their long-standing service and contributions to the communication theory community. The workshop was attended by 82 people, with many new faces to CTW. A large number of young researchers and students attended CTW thanks to the financial support from National Science Foundation, Texas Instruments, Center for Multimedia Communication at Rice University, Wireless Networking and Communications Group at The University of Texas at Austin and Wireless Internet Center for Advanced Technology at Polytechnic University, Brooklyn. CTW does not have published proceedings but the details of the program, the presentations, the posters as well as photographs of the technical, social and sports events can be found on the CTW 2006 web site http://www-ece.rice.edu/ctw2006.
2. CTW 2007: J. Zhang announced that the final arrangements with the Sedona Hilton Resort have been finalized and the outline for the technical program has been set: 3 Plenary talks, 2 Panels, and 5 invited sessions.
BUSINESS
1. The CTTC is accepting proposals for CTW 2008. There has been a tradition of alternating between the Eastern USA and Western USA. If tradition is followed, CTW 2008 should be held in the Eastern USA. If no strong proposals are received for a location in the Easter USA, then proposals to hold CTW 2008 anywhere will be considered. Please send initial proposals to Michael Rice mdr@ee.byu.edu.
2. S. Benedetto announced that the CTTC nominations committee had nominated Prof. Scott Miller of Texas A&M University as a candidate for the next chair. The floor was opened to nominations from those attending the CTTC meeting. No nominations were received and Scott Miller was elected Chair by a hand vote. Prof. Miller’s tenure as CTTC Committee Chair begins 1 January 2007. He will announce his choices for vice chair and secretary December 2006.
Attendance: 67