BOG Members in Attendance:
Julia Abrahams, Andrew Barron, Vijay Bhargava, Richard Blahut, Aubrey Bush, Robert Calderbank, Agnes Chan, Roger Cheng, Daniel Costello, Anthony Ephremides, Thomas Ericson, Tom Fuja, Bruce Hajek, Chris Heegard, Saleem Kassam, Jody O'Sullivan, Sergio Verdu, Serena Zabin
Others in Attendance:
Ian Blake, Brian Hughes, Steve McLaughlin, Alexander Vardy
1. The meeting was called to order at 7:45PM in the Johns Hopkins University Faculty Club, Baltimore, Maryland.
2. The agenda for the meeting was approved.
3. The minutes of the October 27, 1994 BOG meeting were approved.
4. President Bruce Hajek congratulated the newly-elected members of the BOG: Andrew R. Barron, Agnes Hui Chan, Thomas R. Fischer, Tom Fuja, Shlomo Shamai (Shitz), and Vijay Bhargava (re-elected). The following announcements were made:
- Richard Blahut will complete his three-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the IT Transactions and Jody O'Sullivan his three-year term as Publications Editor, both in August of 1995. The Board approved the following new appointments for their successors (effective September 1, 1995): Robert A. Calderbank as the Transactions Editor-in-Chief and Steve McLaughlin as the Publications Editor.
- As of December 1995, Ramesh Rao will have completed a three-year term as the IT Society's Newsletter Editor and Roger Cheng will have completed a three-year term as the IT Society's Membership Chairman; Tom Fuja will have completed another year as the Society's Treasurer. Serena Zabin will be the IT Society's Secretary this year; Dan Costello will chair the Conferences and Workshops Committee; and David Forney will chair the Society's Fellows Evaluation Committee. Stuart Schwartz will become the new IT Society liaison to the IEEE Press. The current liaison, John Anderson, has become Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Press.
- Andrew Barron and Anthony Kuh will be the IT representatives to the Neural Networks Council (NNC) in 1995. The IT Society gave notice of its intention to withdraw from the NNC in 1994. According to IEEE rules, the participation of the IT Society in the Council will officially take effect at the end of the 1995 calendar year. Andrew Barron and Anthony Kuh will report the activities of the Council to the BOG.
- Anthony Ephremides continues to be the historian for the Information Theory Society. The past of the IT Society is chronicled in his IT Newsletter segment "The Historian's Column."
5. Bruce Hajek reported on the IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) meeting held in March of 1995. The items included the following:
- IEEE Technical Activities is facing financial problems. An adhoc committee of the Technical Activities Board was formed to consider possible sources of revenue for TAB. Two recommendations were made: (i) that the number of services for which Technical Activities charges societies be increased; and (ii) that a tax on the societies be instituted. Since the IEEE General Fund lost $10M last year and, as of March 1995, was facing a deficit of $5M, it is unlikely that the $1.25M allocation from the General Fund to TAB will increase. The impact of these two changes would be an estimated annual cost of $23K to the IT Society. The institution of these changes is not expected to take effect in 1996, but could possibly take effect in 1997. The deficit in the IEEE General Fund is in part due to problems that the IEEE is having with its information system software. Substantial efforts are being made to eliminate these problems.
- The Neural Networks Council (NNC) is considering its possible evolution into the IEEE Society for Computational Intelligence.
6. Several issues were addressed with regard to IT Symposia and Workshops:
- The use of the financial surplus from the ISIT '94 conference was discussed. This was in response to a request made by Torleiv Maseng that the amount (200,000 NOK) contributed by the Norwegian companies to the Symposium be deducted from the surplus (280,000NOK) and earmarked for local information theory conferences in Scandinavia (as of 3/7/95, the exchange rate is 6.22NOK/US$). (The remaining 80,000NOK would be forwarded to the IT Society). The sense of the BOG was that a concrete proposal on the use of some fraction of the ISIT surplus for the promotion of Information Theory in Scandinavia is needed before a decision is made by the BOG. In two other instances, under prior arrangement, there was transfer of 30 % of the ISIT surplus to a local information theory entity. Bruce Hajek will communicate with Maseng and other information theorists in the Scandinavian region regarding this issue.
- Sergio Verdu reported on the budget for the 1994 IT Workshop held in Russia. The total income for the Workshop was 38.2M rubels. The total expenses were 42.644M rubels. The deficit (4.444M rubels) was covered by the sponsors, namely the Russian Foundation of Fundamental Researchers and the Administration of the Moscow Region.
- Tom Fuja reported on the financial status of the 1994 IT Workshop held in Alexandria, Virginia. Upon payment of the $5K loan, the estimated surplus from the workshop will be $20K. The funding provided by the various agencies contributed to the financial success of the conference (this includes $15K from ONR and $5K from NSA). The surplus will be divided equally among the two sponsors of the workshop, namely the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the IT Society.
- Bruce Hajek and Jody O'Sullivan reported on the status of the 1995 IT Workshop in St. Louis. As of March 21, the number of registrants for the conference was 50. The projected number of participants is 80-100. The overall budget for the conference (excluding ONR funds) is $7K-$8K. ONR funds are being used to subsidize travel grants for junior attendees. The surplus from the workshop will go to the IT Society.
- Paul Siegel submitted a written report on the status of the 1995 workshop in Poland. There will be seven full invited sessions, each with six speakers. A substantial number of contributions to the "Recent Results Session" is anticipated. The Workshop has received a $5K grant from IBM and a $5K loan from the IT Society. Chris Heegard is seeking NSF approval for the transfer of surplus NSF funds (in the amount of $5.7K) from ISIT'94 to the workshop. Paul Siegel will administer the funds. There have been eight requests for travel grants from participating speakers. These requests have been approved.
- Ian Blake reported on the status of the technical program for the 1995 ISIT to be held in British Columbia. The number of submissions was 626. There were 450 short papers and 25 long papers accepted. The symposium will consist of seven parallel sessions. David Forney will present the Shannon Lecture. The four plenary speakers are Jacob Ziv, Ingrid Daubechies, Brian Marcus, and Gilles Brassard.
Vijay Bhargava reported on local arrangements for the symposium. The fee for early registration (prior to 8/15) by IEEE members is $300US. Rooms at the conference hotels range from $54-$82US per night.
- Sergio Verdu reported on the status of the 1996 Workshop in Israel on behalf of Shlomo Shamai (Shitz) and Meir Feder. Preparations are progressing as planned. Commitments to support the workshop have been made by the Neyman Research Institute, in the amount of $10K, and by the Institute of Advanced Studies in Mathematics, in the amount of $2K. The Israel Academia of Science and Humanities will arrange and finance a reception at the Academia House in Jerusalem for all the participants and their spouses to honor Jacob Ziv's 65th birthday. Attempts to raise additional funds for the workshop will be made. These funds will insure a reasonably low registration fee for the workshop and will facilitate the invitation of one or two East European scholars who cannot afford the expenses.
- The 1997 ISIT will be held in Ulm, Germany. The 1998 IT Workshop is scheduled for June in Ireland. Proposals are being solicited by Dan Costello for the 1998 ISIT. This symposium will also commemorate the 50th anniversary of Information Theory.
- A request was made by Terry Fine that the IEEE IT Society provide Cooperation with the 1995 Neural and Information Processing Symposium (NIPS95). Vijay Bhargava requested that the IT Society provide Technical Co-Sponsorship of the 1996 International Symposium on Information Theory and Its Applications (ISITA'96). Both requests were approved by the Board.
- The Board is considering the possibility of moving to a yearly symposium schedule. A solicitation for comments regarding this issue was placed by Dan Costello in the March issue of the IT Newsletter.
7a. A written report was submitted by First Vice-President Jerry Gibson concerning nominations for the IT Paper Award.
7b. The issue of changing/augmenting/supplementing the highest honor in Information Theory, the Shannon Lecture, was addressed. See June 1995 IT Newsletter for details, including amendment of IT Society Bylaws.
8. Tom Fuja gave the Treasurer's report:
- The net worth of the IT Society's assets as of January 1, 1995 was $554.4K. This represented a gain of $16.3K since January 1, 1994.
- There were two outstanding loans, one in the amount of $5K to the organizers of the 1994 Workshop in Alexandria, the other in the amount of $5K to the organizers of the 1995 Workshop in Poland.
- The value of the long-term investment as of January 1, 1995 was $421.4K. This represented a loss of $16.0K (3.7%) since January 1, 1994.
- The 1994 pre-audit summary showed an income of $683.5K and expenses of $667.2K, yielding a surplus of $16.3K.
9. Membership Chairman Roger Cheng reported on issues concerning membership development. During 1992 and 1993, the IT Society experienced an increase in its total membership. This was followed by a 6% decrease in the beginning of 1994. The student membership profile showed similar trends, except that the decrease that occurred in the beginning of 1994 was proportionally more substantial. Efforts are being made to increase the IT Society's membership. These include recruitment of nonmember authors of accepted IT Transactions papers and identification (via the Technical Information Profile) of non-IT Society IEEE members who have an interest in Information Theory. Copies of the most recent issue of the IT Newsletter have also been distributed at the symposia and workshops.
10a. Editor-in-Chief Richard Blahut and Publications Editor Jody O'Sullivan reported on issues relating to the publication of the IT Transactions. The number of papers submitted in 1994 was slightly in excess of 500. Richard Blahut noted that the number of submissions to the Transactions has stabilized after several years of rapid growth. The IEEE Publications Department is encouraging electronic submission of papers. There is a Special Issue on Algebraic Geometry and Codes which is scheduled to be published in early 1995.
One new appointment was approved by the Board: Claude Crepeau as the Associate Editor for Cryptography.
Jody O'Sullivan submitted a written report. The number of IT papers accepted to date this year is 34. The backlog is now fixed at approximately 18 weeks. The total number of pages to be used this year should be under budget. There were 348 pages in the January issue of the Transactions and 264 pages in the March issue. The projected number of pages for the May and July issues will be 274 and 345, respectively. The publication delays have continued to decrease.
10b. Future Editor-in-Chief Robert Calderbank reported on the proposed Special Issue on Codes and Complexity. This special issue will be devoted to the interplay between coding and complexity. Papers that link at least two of the following areas are being solicited: coding theory, complexity theory, and symbolic dynamics/systems theory. One of the primary objectives of this special issue is to explore the performance/complexity tradeoffs in coding. The proposed budget will allow for 300 pages, which is consistent with previous special issues of the IT Transactions. The proposed submission/selection/publication schedule is December 15, 1995/ June 15, 1996/ September 1996. The Board approved the proposed Special Issue on Codes and Complexity.
10c. The possible inclusion of the IT Transactions in the CommSoc publications package was presented by Bruce Hajek as an issue for consideration by the Board. The CommSoc is organizing a new publications package for library sales. Journals in this package would be offered jointly at a 20% discount. In contrast, the "All Periodicals Package" that IEEE offers sells publications at a 40% discount. The CommSoc is interested in including all of its journals and magazines in the package, as well as the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing and the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. The advantages of the IT Society's participation (in such a package) would be the increased distribution of the Transactions since some libraries currently do not carry them. The disadvantage is that libraries that are currently purchasing the Transactions as a separate item (877 such libraries) might alternatively start purchasing the package, thus paying 20% less. The IT Society would also be expected to pay a percentage (currently estimated at 10%) of the $20K advertising campaign. Tony Ephremides moved that the Board endorse the IT Society's participation in such a package. The motion passed.
10d. Bruce Hajek proposed that the IT Society have a home page on the World Wide Web. He also proposed that Ramesh Rao be appointed the IT Society's Web Editor for the remainder of the year. Ramesh Rao has agreed to assume the dual role of IT Society Web Editor and IT Society Newsletter Editor for this year. These recommendations were met with approval by the Board.
11. The following motions were approved by the Board:
- The IT Society will pay the 1995 and 1996 IEEE and Society dues for a submitted list of twenty Russian scientists who are members of the Russian Chapter of the IT Society.
- The IT Society BOG endorses the IEEE effort to reach a joint membership agreement with the Papov Society, and approves of the IT Society's participation in the agreement.
- The IT Society BOG endorses the Eastern European Library Project and approves of the IT Society's participation in the Project.
12. The next BOG meeting will be held on Monday evening, June 26, in Rydzyna, Poland (in connection with the IEEE Information Theory Workshop). The following BOG meeting will be held on Tuesday evening, September 19, in Whistler, British Columbia (in connection with the 1995 ISIT). The meeting adjourned at 11:45PM.