Attendees: Jerry Gibson, Greg Pottie, Dave Forney, Anthony Ephremides, Ezio Biglieri, Thomas Ericsson, Ryuji Kohno, Hat- sukazu Tanaka, Julia Abrahams, Hideki Imai, Aiji Okamoto, Kei- ichira Koga, Vijay Bhargava, Stephen Wicker, Thomas Fuja, Kees Immink, Francis Swarts, Hendrik Ferriera, Masao Nakagawa, Agnes Chan, Masayesu Hata, Hirosuke Yamamoto, Toshiyasu Mat- sushima, Kohichi Sakaniwa, Fio Kanaya, Shinsaku Mori, Torleiv Klove, Bruce Hajek, Han Vinck, Chris Heegard, Sergio Verd'u, Ken Zeger.
1. Jerry Gibson welcomed the I.T. BoG members as well as the members of the SITA board to the meeting.
2. The agenda was approved.
3. The minutes for the June 9 Haifa meeting were approved.
4. Announcements
IT Society TAB Review: Jerry Gibson reported that this was almost done, including a 5 year history of symposia and workshops, attendees; profit/loss; membership, transactions pages, etc. The report will shortly be distributed for comments, with the finished report to be submitted in early October. Sergio Verd'u and Jerry Gibson will attend the TAB review in Denver Nov 5, expected to be a two hour meeting.
5. Treasurer's Report. Jerry Gibson reported that the annual budget is due Sept. 27. The net worth of the Society is $1.033 M, up 197K since January. There is one outstanding loan to the 1997 ISIT. There is 533K in long term investments with a gain of 7K since January. Several members had questions on why the gain is so low given stock market performance. The budget was approved.
6. Russian Memberships. This subject was introduced by Jerry Gibson. In 1992 the Society decided to fund some IEEE and Infor- mation Theory Society memberships. There were 19 then, with funding continued through 1996, at a cost of roughly $2K per year. The issue was what to do for 1997 and the future. After much dis- cussion, it was resolved that Pres. Jerry Gibson will ask for a detailed plan on how assistance is to be used including a plan for ending the dependence, with the matter to be dealt with at the next BoG meeting.
7. Symposia and Workshops
a. Tom Fuja reported that we are closing the books on the Poland and Alexandria workshops, and will soon complete them for the Haifa workshop.
b. 96 IT Workshop Israel . Sergio Verd'u reported that Shlomo Sha- mai has made a report to the newsletter. Many BoG members were very pleased with how the workshop went. After some discussion it was moved by Chris Heegard that $2000 be granted to the Israeli Information Theory Society in recognition for their excellent job in organizing the Haifa workshop.
c. 96 ISITA Victoria. Vijay Bhargava reported that the conference has 280 attendees, 125 from Japan, 55 from the US, 35 from Can- ada with the balance from a large number of countries. The cost was higher than Whistler since the conference center in under con- tract to use the Empress Hotel catering. Hideki Imai was com- mended for his fine job on the technical committee.
d. Excess travel from ISIT. Vijay Bhargava reported that the $1500 in leftover funds were spent on ISITA to provide some complimentary registrations for young researchers.
e. 1996 Comm Theory MiniConference with Globecom. Ezio Big- lieri reported there were six sessions with 8 presentations per ses- sion. The registration fee for the main conference and mini- conference together was $700 without food, with no possibility of registering only for the mini-conference. A suggestion was made that the Society may not give approval to conferences with such high fees in the future. While technically a success, such fees keep young people away. Student fees were L50, but Ezio Biglieri felt that the mini-conference fees ought to be waived for students alto- gether. Subsequent discussion revealed general concern with this problem of bundling for both Communications Society and Com- puter Society conferences, with particular unhappiness that the edu- cational mission of the IEEE was not being well-served by the trends in fees at many conferences. Jerry Gibson will write a letter on behalf of the Information Theory Society expressing our con- cerns.
f. Winter School 15th-18th December 1996. Thomas Ericsson reported that the fees will be $300 including full board for graduate students. Some tutorials will be given by senior researchers. So far half of the invitees had accepted
g. 1997 ISIT Germany. Han Vinck reported on progress. The tech- nical committee will meet at the winter school. The plenary lectures have been arranged. The symposium fee will include the social program and banquet, proceedings, but no lunches as there are many local options. So far $20K has been raised from local indus- try to subsidize the symposium. A wide range of hotels at different prices has been arranged; in short planning is on track. The dead- line for papers is October 1.
g. 1997 IT Workshop July 7-11, Longyearbyen. Torleiv Klove cir- culated a report. The center has room for 60 participants. The reg- istration fee is $150 including an excursion to a glacier and mining town, reflecting some support from the Norwegian research coun- cil. A package of hotel and meals costs $1300 single, $950 double. Special charter travel options are being investigated.
h. 1998 IT Workshop Ireland. The BoG is still awaiting a budget.
i. 1998 ISIT. Dave Forney presented an update. It will be the third week of August, so that the symposium will have much of the MIT campus to itself. Blocks of rooms have been arranged for hotels as well as student dormitory rooms. 700 attendees are budgeted. The facilities will allow for 7 parallel sessions in close proximity, with more classrooms available at some distance if more sessions are felt necessary. Lunches will not be included, but a large reception area will be reserved for people to get together. The question of whether there would be both a 50th anniversary party and a banquet was dis- cussed, the issue being the $50 to $75 additional cost of a large party. MIT is a fairly expensive venue; the aim is for a registration fee of around $350 but the final figure will depend on what level of local support can be attracted. A suggestion was made that part of the 50th anniversary celebration would be a series of talks on Sun- day afternoon. On the question of the number of papers and ses- sions, a suggestion was made that each particular speaker should present only one paper to encourage only the very best recent research to be presented; there were mixed feelings on this. Also discussed was whether the conference proceedings should be more than one page per paper, since the Symposium has become less and less a forum for presentation of the most recent results. As to the number of sessions, the general feeling is that this should be deter- mined by the quality of the papers submitted.
j. IT Workshop San Diego. Ken Zeger presented a sheet on progress. The organizers prefer a winter 98 time, but have not yet determined a location among the possibilities of the campus, desert, and beach resorts. On the question of timing there was consider- able discussion as 1998 is shaping up to be a busy year for work- shops. Sergio Verd'u mentioned an upcoming workshop to take place in the Netherlands, sponsored by Royal Academy, and there will also be one in Ireland. Further discussion ensued as to what the purpose of workshops is to be; for example, should it be to bring new subjects and thus members into the domain of Informa- tion Theory? Thomas Ericsson moved that the BoG approve the San Diego workshop, with the suggestion that the organizers con- sider the interactions with other conferences in choosing a date. The motion passed.
k. 1998 ISITA in October 14-19 in Mexico City. Vijay Bhargava moved and the BoG approved technical sponsorship of the confer- ence.
l. 1999 IT Workshop South Africa. Hendrik Ferreira distributed a proposal, which suggests June 13-18 in Kruger National Park. It has a conference center and there are opportunities for corporate sponsorship. A local chair is required from the US. A package including local transport, game drives, meals, hotel and fees is expected to be less than $1000, with substantial reductions possible for students and those making use of campsites There was some discussion on the length of the workshop; there will be roughly three days of sessions. Vijay Bhargava moved approval of sponsor- ship, and the BoG after some discussion of item m. below passed the motion.
m. Workshop in Greece: Tony Ephremides presented the basic plan. The idea is to have a working session with formal session including panel discussions, and/or five minute talks with 25 minutes of dis- cussions; the theme will be networks and multi-user communica- tions. One possible venue is a mountain town near the Albanian border. Transportation issues and possible attachments to South Africa or Italy are to be considered in preparing a proposal for the next BoG meeting.
n. ISIT 2000 Italy. Ezio Biglieri reported on progress. The facili- ties will support up to 8 sessions. For plenaries there are 700 seats in main hall. The hotel has 400 rooms at $80-160 for double per person with breakfast. Other hotels in walking distance (up to 15 minutes) have doubles from $40 to $160 per person. The tentative dates are June 25 to June 30, which must be tied down soon to arrange hotel bookings. The program will include a set of tutorials on Sunday, 2-3 in parallel, with a nominal fee for students, for 20- 30 people. The registration free is anticipated to be roughly $500 including lunches and a reception.
8. Membership Development. Jerry Gibson reports. There is a web page for gathering feedback from members, with details in the newsletter. Urbashi Mitra was commended for her good job on membership development.
9. Publications
a. Transactions
A report was circulated; everything seems to be on track. N. Merhav was approved as the successor for M. Feder as source coding edi- tor.
b. Newsletter. This also is going well.
c. Society Home Page. The pace of development has picked up; Ramesh Rao wants more e-mail on new things to put on it. People should put their names in to have home pages listed. Bruce Hajek suggests that the symposium publications should point to url's on the web so that people can get further information (as an alternative to publishing full papers).
10. Awards Committee. Sergio Verd'u reported that the paper "The context tree weighting method: Basic properties" by Willems, Shtarkov and Tjalkens is the winner of the best paper award. Addi- tionally Amari has received the Pieri award for neural networks. Other results are to be announced in the fall.
11. Shannon Award. Jerry Gibson announced that Jacob Ziv will be honored with the 1997 Shannon award. 1996 winner Imre Csisz\'ar will also give a Shannon lecture at the Ulm Symposium.
12. BoG and Officer Elections
The following slate of 15 candidates for terms on the BoG next year was assembled and approved, based on a list of 12 candidates pre- pared by the First Vice President, Bruce Hajek, and nominations at the meeting: Julia Abrahams, Yoram Bresler, Rene Cruz, Meir Feder (Region 8), Costa Georghiades, Te Sun Han (Region 10), Michael Honig, R.J. McEleice, Moshe Sidi (Region 8), Han Vinck (Region 8), Victor Wei (Region 10), Frans Willems (Region 8), Ramesh Rao (Region 6), Aaron Gulliver (Region 10), and Prakash Narayan. In addition, Andrew Barron and Ezio Biglieri were selected as candidates for the Second Vice President, Thomas Eric- sson was selected candidate for First Vice President, and Sergio Verd\'u was selected as candidate for President.
13. New Business.
The BoG expressed its thanks to Jerry Gibson for serving as Presi- dent this past year, and to Chris Heegard and Tony Ephremides for their distinguished service on the BoG.
14. The meeting was adjourned at 11:07 PM.