ICC 2003
Tue May 13, 2003
Adventure Room, Captain Cook Hotel, Anchorage, Alaska
Meeting chair: Sergio Benedetto benedetto@polito.it
Meeting minutes recorded by Mohamed-Slim Alouini alouini@ece.umn.edu

0- The meeting was called to order at 5:40 PM.

1- Sergio Benedetto welcomed all members and presented the agenda of the meeting.

2- Sergio Benedetto briefed the members on the news from the TAC meeting:
2-a It was reported in this meeting that IEEE revenues are significantly declining: from Conferences, from advertising, from membership fees (- 6.8% in 2003), and from publications subscriptions (-19% in 2003). The good news comes from IEL use (60 M$ in 2002) and the fact that ComSoc journals are top 5 in ISI citation index for impact in telecommunication.
2-b The Communication theory technical committee has been recertified through 12/31/2005 (together with other 19 out of 20, the remaining one is planning to join LOS society).
For the formulation of a new TC, the emerging technologies committee can act as an incubator for this (procedure will be posted on the ComSoc web site in summer). Present cases are: Consumer networking and Policy-based management and control.
2-c JSAC offers 3 out of the 12 yearly issues to incubate new technical journals. Transactions on Wireless was a successful example. Transactions on Optical Communications is the present case, just started.
2-d ComSoc sponsorship ($$) versus endorsement (no $$) of a conference. In order to plan a conference (choosing the venue, the hotel, contracting, etc.) there is a strong suggestion from ComSoc to use the services of HelmsBriscoe organization. This can help a lot for NOT paying the hotel fees in case the conference goes wrong in terms of effective number of attendees, etc.
2-f There are still problems in relationship between TPCs of major conferences and TCs: (i) Choice of Symposia subjects (ii) Existence of a General Conference, and (iii) Choice of Symposia Chairs. It was decided during this meeting that this subject will be discussed among TCs Chairs and a procedure proposal will be put forward and enforced after approval.
2-g Sergio Benedetto suggested the following as far as the relationship between TPCs and TCs is concerned: (i) Participation (being an official member) to TPC of one representative from TC, (ii) Always having a General Conference in addition to Symposia, with a percentage of the program to be decided by the TPC, and (iii) Symposia chairs to be agreed between TPC chair and TC chair based on a suggestion coming from the Committee.

3- Conference Reports:
3-a ICC 2003 (Anchorage, Alaska, May 2003) Communication Theory Symposium (Reps: Steve McLaughlin and Urbashi Mitra). Urbashi Mitra addressed the committee. There were 254 submitted papers. There was an uneven number of submissions (for example many submissions on the MIMO topic). These papers were handled by 25 TPC members (about 10 papers per TPC member). Papers with an overall score of 3.8 and higher were automatically accepted (top 26.4 % of papers). Papers with scores of 3.7 were discussed. Eventually 96 papers were accepted (38% acceptance rate) and 24 half sessions of 4 papers were formed on the following topics: CDMA (3), STC(6), Fading (3), Modulation (1), SP for Comm (1), UWB (1), OFDM (2.5), Turbo Codes/Iterative Methods (3), LDPC Codes (1), Wireless Networks (0.5), Coding (1), and Coding for Storage (1).
Urbashi Mitra mentioned that many session organizers decided not to attend ICC'03 which resulted in last minutes changes in session chairs. Desmond Taylor mentioned also that there was in some instances room problems (overcrowded rooms). He suggested that in the future local arrangements persons should be informed ahead of time about potentially successful sessions.
3-b Globecom 2003 (San Francisco, California, December 2003) Communication Theory Symposium (Reps: Alex Haimovich and Helmut Boelcskei). Alex Haimovich and Helmut Boelcskei addressed the committee. There were 267 submitted papers. These papers were handled by 28 TPC members. After the Globecom'03 TPC meeting held during ICC'03, the Communication Theory symposium obtained 13 sessions allowing the acceptance of 104 papers (i.e., an acceptance rate of 39 %). The final decisions on the papers were based on the scores as well as the TPC rankings. Alex Haimovich and Helmut Boelcskei thanked the TPC members for their great job but mentioned that there were in some instances problems with student-only reviews and reviews not containing enough information on the reasons for giving very low scores. Desmond Taylor mentioned that the trend of an acceptance rate less than 40 % in the last ICCs and Globecoms (which is below than the typical 40 % rate acceptance rate in IEEE Trans. Commun for example) can lead to a problem of attendance. Sergio Benedetto further noted that for uniformity, the acceptance rate (for Communication Theory) should be maintained roughly the same across ICCs and Globecoms).
3-c ICC 2004 (Paris, France, June 2004). Communication Theory Symposium (Reps: Moe Win and Stefan Kaiser). Hikmet Sari who is also member of the Communication Theory technical committee is the technical program chairman of ICC'04. Moe Win and Stefan Kaiser addressed the committee. There will be no general conference (just symposiums) during ICC'04. All TPCs have been formed. The review process for the Communication Theory symposium will be handled by 28 TPC members. The deadline for submission is September 1, 2003.
3-d Globecom 2004 (Dallas, Texas, November 2004). Communication Theory Symposium (Reps: Naofal Aldhahir, Len Cimini, Dennis Goeckel, and Brian Hughes). Everything is on track. Discussion on planning process and courses of actions are being initiated. The co-chairs are also in the process of forming a TPC of about 25 members for the Globecom'04 Communication Theory Symposium. Volunteers can contact (with a CV) anyone of the reps/co-chairs to be included in the TPC.
3-e ICC 2005 will be held in May 2005 (May 15 to 19) in Seoul, Korea. Sergio Benedetto mentioned that there is still a need for volunteers/candidate for representing our committee/chairing the Communication Theory symposium for ICC 2005. For details see: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/org/operation/techcom/comt/volunteers.html
3-f Globecom 2005 will be held in November 2005 in St Louis. Sergio Benedetto mentioned that there is still a need for volunteers/candidate for representing our committee/chairing the Communication Theory symposium for Globecom 2005. For details see: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/org/operation/techcom/comt/volunteers.html
3-g ICC 2006 will be held in June 2006 in Istanbul, Turkey. Sergio Benedetto mentioned that there is still a need for volunteers/candidate for representing our committee/chairing the Communication Theory symposium for ICC 2006. For details see: http://www.comsoc.org/socstr/org/operation/techcom/comt/volunteers.html

4- Workshops Reports:
4-a Comm-Theory Workshop 2004. Sergio Benedetto addressed the committee. The workshop will be held in Capri (Italy), Hotel Quisisana, member of the ``Leading Hotels of the World". The workshop will start on May 5, 2004 (Wednesday evening) and end on May 8, 2004 (Saturday noon). These dates were chosen after suggestions by the Committee members, since this is the week preceding the VTC 2004 Conference which will be held in Genova (Italy) from May 10 to May 14, 2004.
The general chair is: S. Benedetto, the technical program co-chairs are: D. Forney and J. Hagenauer, and the local arrangements chair is G. Zarone (University of Naples).
Suggestions for session topics include: Capacity results for multiuser wireless systems with multiple antennas, Iterative algorithms, Ad-hoc networks, Multiple access techniques, Network coding, Ultra-wide band Multipath channel modeling and characterization (1-2 tutorials), SW/HW implementations issues, (Channel) estimation techniques, (Turbo) Synchronization at very low SNRs, and Optical channel coding and modulation.
4-b Comm-Theory Workshop 2005. Christian Schlegel addressed the committee. The workshop will be held the first week of June in Park City, Utah. The workshop is likely to be sponsored by L3 Communications, Salt Lake City, Utah.
The general chair is: Christian Schlegel, the technical program co-chairs are: Costas Georghiades and Witold Krzymien, and the local arrangement co-chairs are: Behrouz Farhang and Michael Rice.
The first draft of the technical program includes 5 half days with the following focus areas: (i) Turbo coding and applications, (ii) MIMO channels and space-time coding, (iii) Wireless systems, (iv) Analog and digital VLSI implementations, and (v) Multiuser and broadcast channels.
Info on the Park City resort is available at: http://www.parkcityinfo.com/
The proposed workshop center is the: Stein Eriksen Lodge (see http://www.steinlodge.com/). Rooms $ 139 and Suites $ 235. All rooms have internet access.

5- IEEE Virtual Communities
Sergio Benedetto mentioned that he recently received a message from Nelson Fonseca mentioning that ComSoc sponsors the Communication Forum Virtual Community (VC):
http://www.ieeecommunities.org?key=777-F49327033C
Anyone can solicit the creation of a virtual community, and there is an encouragement for the TCs to do so. The VC has to be approved by an IEEE Committee. The request form can be found at
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/vc/application.htm
The received e-mail will be broadcasted on the Comm-Theory mailing list, and the committee members can give their opinions on the opportunity to apply for the Comm-Theory Committee Virtual Community by contacting Sergio Benedetto at: benedetto@polito.it
6- The meeting adjourned at 6:45 PM.