Present:
Vijay Bhargava, Ezio Biglieri, Robert Calderbank, Sean Coffey, Anthony Ephremides, Thomas Ericson, Dave Forney, Tom Fuja, Jerry Gibson, Dennis Goeckel, Joachim Haganauer, Bruce Hajek, Michael Honig, Philippe Jacquet, Bob McEliece, Steve McLaughlin, Urbashi Mitra, Pierre Moulin, Vince Poor, Greg Pottie, Ramesh Rao, W. Szpankowski, Sergio Verd\'u, Alexander Vardy, Stephen Wicker.
1. The meeting was called to order 8:05 PM by Sergio Verdu, and introductions were made.
A resolution was presented by Robert Calderbank: On behalf of the members of the Information Theory Society, the Board of Governors expresses its deep sorrow and profound sense of loss at the passing of Dr. Aaron Wyner, one of the Society's most accomplished and valued members. In addition to his many fundamental scientific contributions that have enriched the field of Information Theory, Aaron gave generously of himself to the affairs of the Society, serving as Editor in chief of the IT Transactions, Society President, and member of the Board of Governors for many years. The Board expresses to his family its deepest sympathy at this time of loss.
A minute of silence was observed by all present.
2. The agenda was approved.
3. The minutes of the Ulm Board of Governors meeting were approved.
4. Announcements were made by Sergio Verd\'u. The results of the 1998 Officers of the BoG elections are 1998 President: Thomas Ericson, 1998 Vice President: Ezio Biglieri, and 1998 2nd Vice President, Vijay Bhargava. It was also announced that Jack Wolf has been selected to receive the 1998 Kobayashi computers and communications award, which will be presented at ISIT 1998. A volunteer effort is being coordinated by Jim Massey to collect literature on information theory (books, journals, conference proceedings, etc. both old and new) for a Dobrushin memorial library. Donations may be sent via Prof. James L. Massey, ISI ETZ F 89, ETH-Zentrum, CH-9092 Zurich, Switzerland. A cooperative arrangement has been reached between six IEEE Societies, including Information Theory, and the VDE/ITG of Germany. Their members will be able to attend conferences and obtain publications of these Societies at 15% above the rate for IEEE members. Finally, elections are coming up for division 10; Vijay Bhargava will coordinate nominations.
5. The Treasurer's report was presented without discussion; the net worth of the Society is $1,291 K as of 7/31/97, up 114K over the previous year.
6. The symposia and workshops report was presented by Tom Fuja. The IEEE policy on closing conferences was outlined. Conference loans must be repaid within thirty days, with the final report due within six months. Better compliance on the part of all Societies is being urged.
a. July 1997 ISIT, Ulm Germany. Joachim Haganauer reported that there were more than 700 participants. $50K was used for subsidizing travel, but the conference generated sufficient funds to cover this and thus the support offered by the BoG was not required. Of some concern were the 6% of authors who did not present accepted papers; the next symposium will get the list of those lacking reasonable excuses.
b. July 1997 IT Workshop, Longyearbyen, Norway. There were 51 participants from 18 countries, and the workshop essentially broke even.
c. Sept. 1997 Int. Symp. Turbo Codes, Brest. Ezio Biglieri reported there were 165 participants, and a successful technical program.
d. Feb 8-11. 1998 IT Workshop, San Diego. Ramesh Rao reported that everything is going fine.
e. June 1998 KNAW Colloq., Amsterdam. Sergio Verd\'u reported that the list of speakers has been finalized; it will take place June 17-19.
f. June 22-26 IT Workshop, Killarney, Ireland. Sean Coffey reported that the organizers are seeking travel funds from a variety of sources. Participants are urged to book hotels ASAP since the workshop occurs during the busy season. Details on travel including how to couple with the KNAW workshop will soon be available.
g. August 1998 ISIT, MIT. Dave Forney reported that given the large number of awards, on Monday evening the Kresge Auditorium will be used for awards and a concert, so that the banquet will not be too long. As it is the 50th anniversary, the organizers want memorabilia of all kinds re: previous ISITs, including photographs, programs, and conference kitsch. Vince Poor reminded BoG members of the mid-November deadline for abstracts. C.R. Rao has agreed to be a plenary speaker, with the full list of speakers to be finalized soon.
h. June 1999 IT Workshop, Metsovo, Greece: The workshop is being coordinated with the Kruger National Park workshop, so that there will be no talks in common. They are looking into arranging a direct flight from South Africa. There will be panels on multimedia and networking. A few more co-organizers for sessions are needed. Recent results will be presented in a poster session. Three plenary speakers have been identified so far.
i. June 1999 IT Workshop, Kruger, South Africa. There was no new report.
j. 1999 Workshop on detection and estimation, classification and imaging, Santa Fe. Jody O'Sullivan proposed a workshop on these topics. As much of the new theory of an information theoretic nature is not appearing in the IT Transactions, the idea is to encourage more papers for IT; this may be coordinated with a special issue. A committee and speaker list are being formed. The format is 3 days with 6 sessions, recent results and a mix of invited and submitted papers; fees will be low for students. The BoG was favorable, and awaits a formal proposal at the next meeting.
k. June 2000 ISIT, Sorrento, Italy. Ezio Biglieri reported that sponsorships are coming in. The organizers will be looking for a loan in early 1998.
l. Fall 2001 ISIT: potential North American sponsors are urged to come forward with proposals for the 2001 ISIT shortly, since symposia take roughly 3 years to organize.
m. 1999 ICC in Vancouver. Vijay Bhargava reported that the theme will be: multimedia and wireless, building blocks of a new society. He suggested we consider sponsoring some sessions, as had been past practice.
n. Future ISIT schedule. The issue was raised as to whether we should now consider having annual ISITs, while leaving some flexibility in their scheduling. A committee will be appointed by Sergio Verd\'u to study the matter.
7. Awards Committee. Thomas Ericson presented the report of the awards committee on the 1997 paper award. There was much discussion related to the bylaws and their meaning with respect to the procedures. A motion by Bob McEliece to accept the primary choice of the committee was defeated by a vote of 5 to 6. Bruce Hajek moved that the three nominations discussed in the report be presented to the BoG for a mail ballot. The motion carried.
8. Ad hoc Committee on the 50th Anniversary. Ezio Biglieri reported that a special issue of the newsletter will be produced with Tony Ephremides and Jim Massey as editors. This will include a variety of interviews and highlight selected major events. A budget will be presented at the next meeting; it is hoped that the issue can be available by the symposium. A logo contest for the Society is being conducted May 98, coordinated by Urbashi Mitra. Vijay Bhargava moved that the prize be $500. The motion carried. A committee will be appointed to nominate the logos and fine tune the selection process, which will include membership voting. Members of this committee may not submit designs. A celebration of Shannon has been planned for Murray Hill in May, but this may be delayed. There will be a special symposium in Siberia for the 50th anniversary of information theory, and in March there will be a coding theory workshop in Germany.
9. Steve McLaughlin reported on the rapid progress of the digital library project for IT Society publications. The scanning will be done around mid November and by mid-February the main task will be largely completed. The final form of the library has not been completely decided; it should be a hybrid of disks and the web. In any case, it should be available by ISIT. The remaining $60-$80K to finish the job will be requested in February.
10. Transactions Editor in Chief Report: A comparison of the cost of paper vs. plastic wrappers for the Transactions was made; the cost will be roughly $9K per year to go to plastic. Ezio Biglieri moved that we authorize the use of plastic wrapping from 1998 on. The motion carried. The special issue on self similarity will be March 1999. Robert Calderbank proposed the appointment of new associate editors: Frank Kschischang for coding theory, Emina Soljanin for coding techniques, and Michael Honig for communications. Vijay Bhargava moved to accept the recommendation; the motion carried. The report had some statistics on the on-line presentation of the IT transactions. The relatively small number of hits raised questions about access and publicity, which will be addressed.
Robert Calderbank proposed a modification to the reviewer appreciation plan presented in Ulm so that nominated reviewers would be given the option of either a $100 cash award or defrayal of IEEE dues and IT Society memberships. Upon receipt of the notification of the award from the Editor-in-Chief, awardees will mail a form including their choice of award to the Treasurer of the Society, who will be responsible for managing the logistics of the rewards. These awards would be processed every six months. Discussion of this proposal emphasized the two-fold purpose of the program to recognize exceptional reviews for their timeliness and thoroughness, namely, to foster a long-term relationship between the Society and the reviewers who spend so much time improving the quality of the Transactions, and to provide some incentive to more timeliness in reviews. Vijay Bhargava moved the adoption of the proposal. The motion carried. Subsequent discussion indicated the BoG would like to seek ways the efforts of the associate editors could more effectively be recognized. It was also noted that the amounts authorized for secretarial support should be revisited as it had been some time since rates were set.
11. Newsletter report. A report is being prepared by Michelle Effros on current mailing times. The cost of expedited delivery has been computed to be roughly $2.4 K per issue.
12. Revision of bylaws. Bruce Hajek presented the following motion: The amounts $1000, $1000, and $500 in the following passages of the IT Society Bylaws shall be changed to $5000, $5000, and $2500 respectively:
In Article VII, Section 1: "an honorarium of $1000 and a suitable memento are awarded to the Claude E. Shannon Award Winners" In Article VIII Section 1: the outstanding paper award "consists of an appropriately worded certificate(s) and an honorarium of $1000 for single author papers or honoraria of $500 to each of the authors of multiply authored papers." This change will be effective beginning with the 1998 awards. The motion carried unanimously.
13. Tom Fuja reported on the pending reorganization of NSF CISE. A committee of three has been appointed to monitor the situation, and to consider writing a letter on behalf of several IEEE Societies expressing support for continued NSF funding of communications research.
14. Membership and Chapters. Ezio Biglieri has sent letters to all chapters soliciting reports on activities, getting responses from less than half. Several chapters are on the IEEE delinquency list for not sending in reports, which may result in their dissolution. Numerous sections with many IT members lack chapters. It was noted that the rules require only 12 members to file a petition to form a chapter, and there is $1000 seed money for new chapters. Lists of members for each IEEE section are easily available. Chapters are an important means of encouraging and sustaining membership, and thus individuals will be approached to organize new chapters.
Urbashi Mitra reported on the question of affiliate memberships. IEEE has no hard and fast rules on how these are to be arranged and will deal with it on a case by case basis. Only the computer society has a large number of affiliates. She has also looked into how to become a senior member. Neither the forms nor how to get them are presently on the web. The IT Society will publish more information on this to encourage more of its members to become senior members.
15. 1998 meetings of the board. Meetings are tentatively planned for San Diego, Killarney, and MIT, with the San Diego meeting tentatively scheduled for Sunday Feb. 7, in the afternoon. Comments will be solicited.
16. New announcements: Vijay Bhargava announced that there will soon be available a one hour video on the memorial session on Gus Solomon and his work.
Bob McEliece moved a motion of thanks for Sergio Verd\'u on a job well done as President of the the Society. It carried with applause.
Sergio Verd\'u moved thanks for Bruce Hajek for 12 years of continuous service on the BoG and for his service as editor in chief and in numerous other tasks. This likewise was enthusiastically carried.
17. The meeting adjourned at 11:40 PM.