*** DRAFT ***
Minutes of the 70th meeting of the Canadian National Committee of URSI
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Members present:
-Amaya, Cesar (CRC/Ottawa, Comm. F)
-Antar, Yahia (RMC/Kingston, Past Chair)
-Caloz, Christophe (Polytechnique/Montreal, Comm. D)
-Despins, Charles PromptQuebec/Montreal, Comm. C)
-Fear, Elise (UC/Calgary, Comm. K)
-Freundorfer, Al (Queen'sU/Kingston, Comm. A)
-Gray, Andrew (NRC-HIA/Penticton, Comm. J)
-Petosa, Aldo (CRC/Ottawa, Comm. B)
-Prato, Frank (UWO-LHRI/London, CNC Chair)
-Shafai, Lot (UM/Winnipeg, Comm E)
-Vallee, Jacques P. (NRC-HIA/Victoria, Secret., Acting-Treas., member)
Absent member:
-Koustov, Alexandre (U.Sask/Saskatoon, Comm. G+H)
Agenda & Timeline:
The CNC meeting started at 8h am on 30 May 2011 in room M6001
at the Pavillon Lassonde, Ecole Polytechnique, Universite de Montreal.
The CNC mtg ajourned at 12h, to reconvene later.
Start-up (10 min):
01. Welcome and Introductory remarks (Prato)
02. Approval of the Agenda (Prato)
Secretariat (20 min):
03. Approval of the Minutes of the 69th Meeting (Vallee)
NB: minutes on CNC administrative web site www.ursi.ca/2010min.html
04. Business arising from the Minutes (Prato)
05. Acting-Treasurer's report (Vallee)
a. NRC HIA [Fahlman] fund for CNC's annual mtg
[$9 497 cdn travel; $1 000 cdn hospitality]
b. URSI CNC [Vallee, Prato, Antar] trust fund for seed/promotion
[$80,151 held at LHRI; expecting $10 000 from surplus IEEE Tor 2010]
c. NRC CS [Pinard] fund for the HQ in Belgium [8,119 Euros; $12,000 cdn]
d. Other NRC contributions [HIA Exec. Secr.; CorpServ deleg. URSI-GA]
06. Canadian URSI Membership lists, by Commissions (Vallee)
NB: current lists sent to all CNC members on 2011 May 13
07. Annual Performance Review, FactSheet, Minutes (Vallee, Prato)
General reports (2 hr):
08. Chair's report (Prato)
08.1 URSI Board 2011 March meeting report (Antar)
09. Short 5min highlights (one from each CNC commission rep.)
10. Past Radio Conferences (Prato)
Future radio conferences (2.5 hr):
11. Canada 2015 - IEEE APS & Joint NARS meeting (Antar)
12. 2014 URSI GA & SS in Montreal (Caloz & Despins)
13. URSI GASS 2011 August in Istanbul - URSI letter to secure funds
for Young Sci. program (Antar)
14. URSI GASS 2011 August in Istanbul - reviewing all candidates
for Vice-Chairs
An URSI Symposium, open to the public was held at 13h30m in room M1010
of the same building, hosted by Christophe Caloz:
- C.Caloz on Introduction to Symposium
- F.Prato on Cdn URSI
- D.Gratton onEM waves and Space missions
- C.Despins on Green ICT and Gas emission reductions
- R. Kashyap on nonlinear optics
- J.Vallee on astronomy with magnetic eyes
- C.Caloz on Metamaterials and Multiscale structures
- N.Nikolova on Near-field imaging of human tissues
The symposium ended at 18h15m. There were about 40 participants.
The CNC meeting reconvened at 20h on the same day, in basement room
of St-Hubert Restaurant and ended at 21h30m.
Promotion (1 hr):
15. Evaluation of the Symposium (Caloz)
16. Candidates for URSI Medals & awards, and for URSI v-p positions (Prato)
17. CNC student awards (Prato)
18. New CNC appointments or reappointments (Prato)
19. Soliciting new ideas (Prato)
20. Public/self-serve web site www.ursicanada.ca (McNeill) and
Administrative/archival web site www.ursi.ca (Vallee)
Wrap-up (30 min):
21 Other businesses (Prato)
22. Tentative date & place for next URSI CNC meeting (Vallee)
------------
01. Welcome & Introductory remarks
======================================
Dr. Frank Prato, CNC Chair, welcomed all CNC participants.
On behalf of CNC, he thanked Christophe Caloz for his hosting in Montreal.
Dr Prato also warmly thanked Dr Jacques Vallee for his work since 1997 as
Executive Secretary and Acting Treasurer.
02. Approval of the Agenda
==============================
The Chair asked for any change to the agenda.
Dr. Prato & Dr. Shafai moved for the approval of the agenda. Unanimous.
03. Approval of the Minutes of the 69th Meeting
===================================================
The Minutes were available on the URSI CNC administrative web
site at www.ursi.ca/2010min.html
The Chair asked for any change to the Minutes. No change.
Dr. Despins & Dr. Amaya moved that the Minutes be approved. Unanimous.
04. Business arising from the Minutes
=======================================
See below.
05. Acting Treasurer's report
=================================
a. NRC HIA fund [Fahlman]:
NRC-HIA in Victoria paid the travels of the CNC members attending the CNC
annual meeting on 2010 May in Calgary, Ont. amounting to a total of
$9 497, plus the hospitality part (food).
b. NRC CNC trust fund [Vallee]:
The URSI CNC trust account is held at LHRI in London, Ont.
It now stands at $80,151 (as compared to $25 000 in 1997).
We should get soon another amount as mentioned by George Eleftheriades
(his email of 25 May 2011) of about $10 000 from the surplus of the
2010 Toronto IEEE.
*** Goals - this trust fund is used for startup money for future conference
partnerships, seed money for conference center reservations,
travel to decision meetings, student awards, promotional efforts, etc.
*** LHRI account rules for the CNC account (Brenda Dubois, 2009 May 11):
-payment approvals (by email) needed from 2 out of 3 people (CNC Chair,
CNC Past Chair, CNC Executive Secretary)
-authorized signature of cheques by Stacey.Larizza@LawsonResearch.com
-clerical processing by Brenda Dubois bdubois@lawsonimaging.ca
-multi-year account (no annual termination date, no fiscal year limit)
-available for advance conference setup, upfront contribution (invoices)
-maximum of $500 honorarium per student award (not taxed; no limit on
no. of students each year)
-travels to meetings: all travel and food receipts required
c. NRC CorpServ fund [Pinard]:
NRC-CorpServ in Ottawa paid 8119 Euros [about $12,000] to URSI
Headquarters in Belgium, for the annual Canadian contribution
[representing 8 URSI votes for Canada at the GA].
d. Sum and other NRC contributions
-The sum for the items (a,b,c) is $101 648 for Cdn URSI matters [1 April].
-In addition, NRC-HIA in Victoria pays for one staff involved in
CNC activities, annual meeting, maintaining trust fund, managerial web
site, annual review for CISET, student certificates, etc.
-NRC-CorpServ in Ottawa contributes towards the travel of 1 CNC voting
delegate at the URSI GA [excluding federal government members].
06. Canadian URSI Membership lists, by Commissions
======================================================
Dr. Vallee noted that complete lists of all Cdn researchers were sent to CNC
members on 2011 May 13. Each CNC member updates his Cdn commission's list.
There is no election and no fee for memberships on these 'complete lists
of Cdn researchers'. These 'complete lists' are important to justify the
continued existence of URSI CNC, as per the rules and funding of NRC CISET.
Commission membership conditions were approved at the 2009 CNC annual mtg:
-Canadians who still publish research or work in industry in these fields
-must be based in Canada (excepted for past Canadians outside Canada)
-students in Canada (must have a reference; approved by CNC commission Chair)
-emeritus status (approval by CNC commission Chair)
07. Annual Performance Review, FactSheet, Minutes
=============================
URSI CNC FactSheet was updated by Vallee and sent to
NRC-CS/Kelly Thompson on 2010 Dec.22 [3 pages], as requested.
Minutes of last year's URSI CN Meeting, written by Vallee, were sent to
NRC-CS/Kelly Thompson on 2010 Dec.22 [8 pages], as per HIA-CS contract.
Dr. Vallee explained the 4th CNC Annual Performance Report [APR], sent to
NRC-CS/Kelly Thompson on 2010 Dec.22. [27 pages], as requested by NRC CISET.
Dr. Prato noted that our CNC is ranked in the top of the pack
by NRC CISET, with a grade of 40.5/45.0. This was a significant increase
from our score last year of 35/45. Dr Prato thanked Dr Vallee for all
the work that Dr Vallee has put into the APR report.
08. Chair's report
======================
Dr. Prato mentioned, among other things, the poor record
of URSI Medals for Canada in this cycle. He asks whether
URSI CN can recast the format better, for the next cycle.
Dr. Prato noted the energizing effort due to the 2nd URSI CNC Symposium
(this afternoon).
08.1 URSI Board 2011 March meeting report (Antar)
====================================================
Dr Yahia Antar continues as Vice-President of URSI. Among other things,
Dr Antar noted that the URSI budget is good, and the URSI GASS 2011 is
proceeding ok. Capacity building in each continent is desired.
09. Short 5min highlights (one from each CNC commission representative)
======================================================================
Each CNC member spoke about on-going activities & developments in their
field. Some concerns expressed were outside the purview of the CNC mandate.
Each commission representative should try to disseminate, to the Cdn
members of their own commission, the information about URSI & meetings.
* Summary / highlights received from Al Freundorfer (A):
Things done in Commission A in the past year:
-2010 APS/URSI Symposium July 11-17, 2010, Toronto, Ontario, Commision A
tech. chair with Ozlem Kilic - USNC
-ANTEM/AMEREM 2010 Tech. paper reviewer
-request for papers sent to list for 2010 APS/URSI symosium,
and GASS 2011 Istanbul
-Sent out newsletters to CNC members list
-Sent out request to become member of public/interactive CNC web site
only two requests.
-7 where registered out of 32 -GASS 2011 chair set up on at the request
of Banerjee : A05 . Nano Metrology
August 17, 0800 . 0920; 0940 . 1040 (7 papers)
Convener: Alois P. Freundorfer al.freundorfer@queensu.ca
-Research on nanoscienece is prevalent in all parts of the world.
Nanoscience demands measurement in nano scale particularly in dimensional
measurement. This challenge opens up a new direction of research.
Many laboratories are putting extensive efforts in this direction.
The current status and strategies and of this field needs to be
discussed and deliberated. It failed to attract any papers.
* Summary / highlights received from Aldo Petosa (B):
1. Served as a member of the Steering Committee for the 2010 APS/URSI
conference, held in Toronto, July 2010.
2. Served as Technical Program Committee Chair for the 2010 ANTEM
conference, held in Ottawa, July 2010.
3. Judged and ranked the Canadian Applications for the Young Scientists
awards for the 2011 URSI General Assembly.
4. Solicited CNC Commission B members to sign up on the new CNC website.
5. Submitted election ballot for the URSI Commission B Vice Chair.
6. Submitted an updated list of CNC Commission B members.
* Summary / highlights received from Charles Despins (C):
...
* Summary / highlights received from Christophe Caloz (D):
1) Preparation of preliminary proposal to host the 2014 XXXIth URSI GASS in
Montreal. This proposal was selected. Subsequently, Canada-Montreal is an
official candidate, in competition with China-Beijing and Japan-Tokyo.
The final proposal is currently being prepared and I will be officially
present at the 2011 XXXth URSI GASS in Istanbul on August 14.
2) Organization of 2 special sessions on metamaterials with Nader Engheta
and Rick Ziolkowski at 2011 URSI GASS, Istanbul. Received a total of 40
papers for the two sessions. Two full joint BD/DB sessions were formed with
invited papers: BD1- Theory, 11 invited papers, and DB3: Applications, 7
invited papers, while the other 29 papers were sent to a Poster Session.
3) Organization of the 2011 URSI CNC Meeting Symposium in Montreal on May 30.
* Summary / highlights received from Lot Shafai (E):
1 . ANTEM-AMEREM 2010:
ANTEM and AMEREM conferences were jointly organized in July 5 - 9, 2010.
The Commission E Chair acted as the Chair of the AMEREM. About 300 papers
were presented in this joint conference. Because this year the URSI
conference was held in Toronto, ANTEM conference did not include CNC
URSI participation.
2 . APS-URSI 2010:
North American URSI conference was organized jointly with IEEE Antennas
and Propagation Society. The Commission E Chair acted both as the Chair
of CNC Commission E, and the Technical Program Chair for the entire
conference. The conference was held in Toronto on July 10-17, 2010, at
the Sheraton Hotel. It was a successful conference with about 1500
accepted papers.
3 . APS URSI 2015:
The Chair of Commission E successfully submitted a proposal to hold APS
URSI 2015 in Vancouver. The URSI part of this conference will be the full
North American URSI conference, and thus will include all URSI commissions
from US and Canada. The main conference planning work, including securing
the APS URSI AdCom agreement, Set of the conference organizing committee,
selection of the conference planner (Conference Management Services, CMS)
and the selection of the conference site (Westin Bayshore Vancouver) were
completed satisfactorily.
* Summary / highlights received from Cesar Amaya (F):
1- ANTEM 2010 in Ottawa, July
Member of TPC. Organized and chaired special session .Recent Developments in
Earth-Space Propagation Research Applied to Satellite Communications.
Four international and three Canadian contributions.
2- APS/URSI 2010 Symposium in Toronto, July
Member of TPC. Reviewed all abstracts submitted to Comm. F, organized
sessions for this commission. Chaired two sessions. Authored and presented
a paper.
3- Upon invitation of Prof. M. Chandra, Chair of Comm. F International,
presented candidacy the position of Vice-Chair Comm. F for the in-coming
period. Three candidates (from Italy, India, and Canada) have been
officially nominated.
4- Updated Comm. F member list.
5- Approved requests to register to Comm. F through the new URSI-Canada
web site. At present 9 members have registered. In a related note, strange
requests for registration have been received. Requests that do not indicate
an identifiable name or affiliation.
6- Prepare to attend URSI GASS to be held in Istanbul, Turkey. Will
present a contribution and participate in the election
* Summary / highlights received from Alexandre Koustov (G + H):
The G and H URSI community had another productive year. The U of Calgary and
U of Saskatchewan researchers received (in actual dollars) a major grant for
installation of a new incoherent scatter radar at Resolute Bay (~20 million
dollars, to be operational in 2012). The radar will be used by Canadian and
international space physicists for studies of the electrodynamical processes
at very high latitudes.
The community continues to be strongly involved in major international
projects such as SuperDARN (network of HF radars run by 11 countries),
CHAIN (High Arctic ground-based network of GPS receivers, ionsondes and
optical imagers) upcoming Canadian e-POP mission (workshop held in
Calgary, May 17-19) and European-led SWARM mission (a constellation of 3
satellites to study electrodynamics of near Earth space). Canadian projects,
vital for international collaboration, such as Canadian Geospace
monitoring Mission (SGSM) continue to be a major effort.
Over the year, as usual, there was strong participation in conferences; many
participated in the Annual DASP (Division of Aeronomy and Space Physics of
the Canadian Association of Physicists) Meeting held in Saskatoon, Feb.
20-22. Members of the Commission H (I. Mann, U of A) are co-organizers of a
major international conference. Dynamics of the Earth Radiation Belts and
Inner Magnetosphere to be held in St.-Jones, Newfoundland and Labrador,
July 17-23, 2011.
Prof. Wayne Hocking received the 2011 CAP Medal for outstanding achievement
in Industrial and Applied Physics,
* Summary / highlights received from Andrew Gray (J):
Commission J activities
-forwarded relevant emails about URSI conferences and activities to
Commission J email list
-solicited current Commission J members to register on new URSI Canada
public/interactive website ursicanada.ca; currently 13 members have
registered (of 53 on email list)
-2 apparently legitimate enquiries about membership from people not on the
current list, but not able to confirm suitability (no response to email).
-numerous "spam" registrations with nonsense information.
-prepared talk on some activities of Commission J in Canada for URSI
GASS 2011: I cannot attend, but talk will be presented by a co-author
-full written report to URSI CNC on Canadian Commission J activities in
preparation; a full written report is in the works.
See elsewhere on the admin/archival web site ursi.ca
* Summary / highlights received from Elise Fear (K):
My activities were focused around the 2010 IEEE APS and URSI conference
in Toronto, as well as the 2011 CNC URSI business meeting and symposium:
-2010 APS/URSI conference .> co-chaired session
-emailed all members on previous list with encouragement to join the
CNC URSI via the public/interactive website
-co-organized special session at the 2011 URSI GA with Prof. Susan Hagness
-Frank Prato served on URSI's long range planning committee,
co-organized 1 session at the URSI GA and oversaw organization of
Commission K sessions for the URSI GA.
10. Past radio conferences
==========================
Toronto 2010 July 11-17 NARS/IEEE-APS/URSI US-NC/URSI CNC internat symp.
URSI CNC would expect a surplus to come to its Trust fund.
The surplus could be around $10 000 (see item 5.b above)
according to the email of 2011 May 25, from George Eleftheriades,
based on the ratio of 44 Cdn papers to the 1570 papers presented.
The surplus might have been greater, had we followed the Joint NARS
formula of previous events held in Canada (half-half).
11. Canada 2015 - IEEE APS & Joint NARS mtg
===========================================
This conference could be in Vancouver.
Excess revenues: either half-half all the way,
or else first half goes 50%-50%, and second
half goes according to the number of US vs Canada papers.
12. 2014 URSI GASS in Montreal
==============================================================
Christophe provided a fantastic powerpoint projection. Applauds followed.
Frank & Yahia will approach US NC regarding support from them.
Canada held the URSI GASS in 1969 Ottawa and in 1999 Toronto.
13. URSI GASS 2011 in Istanbul
==============================================================
Antar proposed, supported by Prato, that URSI CNC provide a scholarship
equal to the Registration fee, for all Cdn-based students
who travel to Istanbul in 2011 for the URSI GASS. AGREED.
Expectations are: maybe 6 students, maybe 200 Euros each.
Two Canadian applicants received Young Scientist Awards, Miss Attieh
Shahvarpour and Dr. Said Mikki.
14. URSI GASS 2011 in Istanbul - candidates for Vice-Chairs of URSI Commissions
==============================================================
Each URSI CNC representative has reviewed and faxed the appropriate
ballot already.
15. Evaluation of the CNC Symposium
===================================================
CNC thanked Christophe, who spent a lot of time to promote and organize the
this 2nd CNC Symposium, held in Montreal.
A quick count of the Symposium audience showed 11 CNC members, and
34 graduate students or professors.
Overall, there was a "good balance" of speakers on many topics.
16. Candidates for URSI medals and awards
=============================================
Lot Shafai received the Killam 100 000 $ award in 2011.
Congratulations, Lot!
No medals in Istanbul for Canadians.
17. CNC student awards
===============================================================
In 2003 April, the CNC agreed that such student awards should be for:
-work done in Canada
-conference held in Canada
-student must be at a Canadian university
There was no student award proposed this year, for conferences occurring
in 2011 or 2012.
Elise Fear suggested an independent mechanism, for papers accepted
at a conference in Canada - travel money limited to $500, number
of award limited to 5, no need to contact conference organizers ?
A committee chaired by Elise Fear, Aldo Petosa, Yahia Antar is formed,
and will report to the CNC soon.
18. New CNC appointments or reappointments
===============================================================
Frank Prato ...ends 3yr as Chair
Dr Caloz and Dr Shafai recommend to HIA to nominate Dr Prank Prato
as Chair for another 3yr.
Lot Shafai ... ends 3yr as E Rep
Dr Shafai and Dr Prato recommend to HIA Dr Behzad Kordi
'
Cesar Amaya ...ends 3yr as F rep
Dr Fear and Dr Prato recommend to HIA to nominate
Dr Amaya for another 3yr term.
Alex Koustov ... ends 6yr as G+H Rep
Dr Prato and Dr Koustov will recommend someone soon.
Andrew Gray .. ends 6yr as J Rep
Dr Prato and Dr Gray will recommend someone soon.
Elise Fear ... ends 3yr as K Rep
Dr Fear and Dr Prato recommends to HIA Dr Mike Okoniewski
Jacques Vallee ... ends 14yr as Exec Secr
Dr Greg Fahlman, HIA DG, has nominated Dr Andrew Gray as replacement.
19. Soliciting new ideas
=============================================================
None.
20. Public/interactive web www.ursicanada.ca (McNeill)
and Administrative/archival web www.ursi.ca (Exec Secretary)
================================================================
Dr. Dean McNeill (U.Manitoba) reported on 2010 May 14 on the availability of
the CNC's public/interactive web site at www.ursicanada.ca, following his
acceptance of the CNC's $4 500 cheque. Software is in place to:
- permit each commission chair to enter and administer
their own information on the site, including posting files and images;
- allow the general public to submit inscription onto a mailing list, plus
approval/removal by each commission chair,
- transfer a workload on each CNC commission Chair, to accept/deny
public inscriptions, upload info about his/ her own commission, etc.
The public/interactive web site was open to the general public on 13 Dec.
2010. On 30 May 2011, very few Canadians had registered so far.
Commission B: lots of spam received at the web site email account.
Commission C: 15 researchers out of 200 in complete list have registered.
Commission D: no news to 'post' on web site.
Commission F: most CRC researchers are reluctant to join web site
Commission E: CSIS contacted Lot about his picture, copied onto an Iran site.
Commission J: lots of spams received, few researchers joined website (13/53).
Commission K: 10 researchers joined the web site, out of 50 in complete list.
Should we delete this membership application form? Too much work?
Should we keep it and broaden the appeal to university students and
industry workers. They would be on a voluntary list of
'Cdn URSI commission-interest group member',
not on the complete list of 'Cdn URSI Commission researchers' [item 6 above].
Should we link it to 'Linkedin' and 'IEEE', to connect with info
on other people in other countries?
21. Other business
==============================
None
22. Tentative Date and Place for the next URSI CNC meeting
==================================================================
There was a suggested or pencilled-in date for
in Kingston, sometimes in May 2012,
hosted by Al Freundorfer and Yahia Antar, along with the 3rd CNC Symposium.
Dr. Prato thanked all members present for their work on the CNC.
Dr. Prato thanked Dr. Vallee for his hard work, corporate memory & reminders.
Dr Vallee thanked all members on behalf of NRC-HIA for helping Radio
Science in Canada, and encouraged them to fill their NRC Travel Claim Form
and to send them to Sharon Dousset at NRC-HIA in Victoria.
Dr Despins moved to close the meeting. The CNC meeting ended near 21h30m.
PS: Minutes written by J.P. Vallee [except for commission reports in item 9].