BU/BV: Minutes of the TC Meetings

Minutes of the Berlin Meeting

Mar. 18, 1999

The meeting was attended by about 25 people. The items of business were:

(1) Thanks and kudos to B&B special-session organizers (Robin Cleveland, Michael Delius, Wesly Nyborg, Francis Duck, Gail ter Haar and Carr Everbach), to session chairs (the above plus Doug Mast, Ron Roy, Ibrahim Hallaj) and award winners Henning von Gierke (Gold Medal) and Paul Barbone (Lindsey Award).

(2) Preregistration for ASA meetings will continue with the Columbus meeting in order for ASA to get better predicitions of attendence when arranging (expensive) functions and meeting spaces. A refund policy for pre-registrants who cannot attend will be announced soon.

(3) Abstact deadline for Columbus is May 24, 1999. This is a HARD deadline since the ASA office is moving and the fax machine will be unplugged on May 25. The technical program organizing meeting (TPOM) for Columbus will take place June 18-20, 1999, and Inder Makin has agreed to be the B&B rep (thanks, Inder).

(4) Allan Pierce, the new editor-in-chief of JASA, is looking for each TC to supply the names of three representatives to help him brainstorm, suggest review articles, and act generally act as an advisory board. Robin Cleveland, Doug Mast, and Junru Wu agreed to be our JASA reps.

(5) Audiovisual equipment, especially computer projectors, are expensive. Three options were outlined: continue to rent them on demand at each TC's expense, buy a projector and distribute the cost over all TC members registration fees, or buy a projector and distribute the cost over all requestors of such equipment for whatever period is necessary. The third option was voted the winner, with no takers of the first option and four votes for the second option.

(6) The new Acoustical Review Letters Online (ARLO) web-based journal editor, Bob Apfel, is seeking articles and reviewers. There will be a drawing for a labtop computer from among the first 1000 reviewers. Contact Bob via email at robert.apfel@yale.edu if you'd like to get your name on the list.

(7) It was announced from Technical Council that TCs now have the ability to earmark donations to the ASA Foundation for their own use. Ideas for fundraising for B&B should be sent to Carr Everbach at CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu.

(8) Speaking of money, here are the current B&B technical initiatives that have been OKed by Executive Council so far for calendar year 1999:

$300 for Webpage maintenance (Shira Broschat is our rep)

$1500 for travel funds (max $500 per speaker, virtually already spent on Berlin transportation charges)

$750 for student paper contest in Columbus (Robin Cleveland)

Other ideas for future intiatives were discussed, including better and more plentiful refreshments at future B&B TC meetings. If you have any ideas, please contact Carr Everbach at CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu. We will need to have a new list in time for the Columbus meeting.

(9) B&B Special Sessions at the Columbus meeting already planned include:

"Signal Processing in Biomedical Ultrasound" (joint with SP) - Shira Broschat organizer
"Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound" - Inder Makin, organizer
"Modeling of Nonlinear Ultrasonic Fields" (joint with PA) - Robin Cleveland, organizer

For the Atlanta meeting:

"New Techniques in Imaging". Possible organizers include Mike Averkiou and Tom Szabo (the title was revised from the previous suggestion "Harmonic Imaging" to allow for other techniques)
"Cavitation Detection and Monitoring" - Ron Roy
"Therapeutic Ultrasound" - Pierre Mourad
"Safety Bioeffects of Ultrasound" - Christy Holland
"Transdermal Drug Delivery" - Wang Yoon

Future meetings will be as follows:

Fall 2000 Newport Beach, CA (but see item 10 below)
Spring 2001 Chicago, IL
Fall 2001 Ft. Lauderdale, FL (but see item 10 below)
Spring 2002 Pittsburgh, PA
Fall 2002 Cancun, Mexico (but see item 10 below)

(10) Discussion turned to what could make the B&B technical committee more useful. Again the issue of the name of the committee arose, this time due to the large number of audio-frequency biomedically related papers presented in Berlin. There was general consensus that a name such as "Biomedical Acoustics" or "Biophysical Acoustics" would embrace all frequencies, including the very low (often tactile) frequencies that the Bioresponse to Vibration part of the TC name includes. There was no move to change the name officially at this meeting, but members' opinions on this perennial problem are solicited via email. Another topic was the difficulty of members attending two ASA meetings per year, along with IEEE (in the Fall) and AIUM (in March). A discussion of solutions resulted in a vote to confine all B&B special sessions to the Spring (usually May or June) ASA meeting, with the Fall ASA meeting having only contributed paper sessions. ASA could then emphasize to IEEE and AIUM members that the Spring ASA meeting is the place to be for Biomedical Ultrasound. The motion passed overwhelmingly, with the change to take place after the Columbus meeting (since special sessions are already underway for that meeting). Hence the Newport Beach, CA meeting will have no B&B special sessions (only contributed paper sessions) but the following Chicago meeting should have many special sessions. ASA should also be on the lookout for opportunities to interact with IEEE and AIUM members at their meetings, perhaps by offering short courses before or after them.

The meeting adjourned after about an hour.

Respectfully submitted,
E. Carr Everbach, Chair
(if you have comments or corrections to these minutes, please send them to me at CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu)