The meeting was attended by 35 people, according to the sign-in sheet. The items of business were:
(1) Thanks to B&B special-session organizers (Tim Leighton and Ron Roy for "Detection and Characterization of Bubbles, Acoustic Cavitation, and Associated Physical Effects I and II", the longest session with the longest name I can remember) and to Mark Prausnitz for chairing the session "Therapeutic and Diagnostic Ultrasound." Special thanks also to Larry Crum for giving the "Hot Topics" lecture on Biomedical Ultrasound and to Wes Nyborg, whose work on SWG-22 formed the impetus for Tim and Ron's session. Mike Bailey was the TPOM representative and arranged the papers into sessions (and now he's off the hook for a while).
(2) The Topical Meeting on "Physics of Echo-contrast Agents" organized by Carr Everbach in Newport Beach was very successful, with a maximum attendance of over 50 and an average attendance above 40. Besides the presenters listed in the program, who were uniformly wonderful, hastily organized panels of participants helped kick off the discussion of each topic. Deepest thanks to the panelists: John Allen, Charlie Church, Bob Apfel, Kathy Ferrara, Larry Crum, Tom Matula, Mike Averkiou, Jim Miller, Diane Dalecki, Lars Hoff, Andy Hurley, Junru Wu, Wes Nyborg, and Jim Greenleaf (did I forget anyone?). The consensus at the meeting seemed to be that the discussion-heavy format of the topical meeting was worthwhile, but that the format could be tweaked to have more presenters and slightly less time allotted for moderated panel discussion (maybe 15-minute inspirational overview talk followed by 30 minutes discussion and a 15 minute break). Larry Crum suggested that we try another topical meeting in December, 2001 (Ft. Lauderdale) on "Image-Guided Therapy" which would included HIFU as well as, perhaps, thrombolysis and other methods.
(3) B&B Sessions for the Chicago, IL, meeting to take place 4-8 June 2001 at the Palmer House Hilton:
Doug Mast is on deck to organize a special session on "Beamforming and Adaptive Aberration Correction" for Chicago, Christy Holland has agreed to organize a special session on "Novel Imaging Techniques." Pei Zhong will organize a lithotripsy session in memory of Brad Sturdevant, who died in October 2000, and who was a frequent contributor to similar sessions at previous meetings. Diane Dalecki cannot organize a "Bioeffects of Ultrasound" session for Chicago, but we had planned to have one and the time is right. Please contact Carr Everbach if you'd be willing to put this together soon CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu.
Brian Fowlkes has generously agreed to attend the Technical Program Organizing Meeting (TPOM) in Chicago on Friday and Saturday, February 16-17, 2001, on behalf of B&B. Brian will do his best to make sure our sessions don't conflict with ones of interest in physical acoustics, underwater acoustics, and related fields.
For 2001, we have $1500 in technical intitiative funds for reimbursing the travel expenses of invited speakers to this (Chicago) meeting or the next one (Ft. Lauderdale). Each speaker can be reimbursed up to $500, and we'll want to save some funds for the Topical Meeting in Ft. Lauderdale that Larry Crum is organizing. Please let Carr know if you have ideas for speakers who might need some help in attending the Chicago or Ft. Lauderdale meetings.
(4) The letter that went out in midsummer 2000 to AIUM members who had indicated an interest in basic mechanisms of ultrasound was deemed a success, based upon the inquiries the mailing generated. However it is still not clear if more physicians will attend the Chicago ASA meeting than would have otherwise. It was suggested that the B&B chair acquire the IEEE-UFFC mailing list and send a similar letter. The cost for the IEEE list, if the use is approved by the IEEE, would be minimal, and Elaine Moran has in the past been able to undertake the mailing.
(5) Future ASA meetings will be as follows:
(6) As predicted, the experiment B&B undertook at this meeting to have our own computer projector was the focus of intense interest by other TCs (technical committees). At $500/day to rent one, our $3000 system nearly paid for itself in one week. Attendees at the Newport Beach meeting noted some problems, however, especially relating to the relatively low-resolution of the (bottom of the line) machine that we have. Attached for comment is a draft set of guidelines that I devised to help future speakers prepare more effective Powerpoint(R)-style presentations. There will also be preview rooms available at future ASA meetings so that presenters can connect their laptops to an identical projector and verify the technical details (settings, etc.) before their session. Please send all comments on this matter to CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu.
(7) The cover design of JASA was discussed. Those attending the B&B business meeting voted to keep the existing format, with the table of contents begun on the cover and spilling into the interior. At the Technical Council meeting later, however, most TCs voted to retain only the ASA logo on the cover and place the table of contents entirely internally. No one seemed to want a compressed table of contents on the cover.
(8) Larry Crum had requested suggestions for "virtual journals" that AIP is interested in assembling, and paying an editor to organize. One suggestion was "ultrasound therapy." These journals would be on-line compilations of articles from different published journals on a theme that is broad enough to have a following but narrow enough to be meaningful.
(9) A brief discussion of email privacy issues occurred. ASA recently was embarrassed when when a message with a computer virus was sent to many members. In the future, the AIP computer system will be used for all mass-mailings to minimize this possibility.
(10) A plea to those in B&B who are putting interesting materials, especially ultrasound images, on the web. Please email Shira Broschat (shira@eecs.wsu.edu) with your url so she can link the B&B website to it. Right now the website is pretty lame and the ASA is trying to keep all its TC websites interesting and up-to-date.
(11) Bob Apfel made a plea for submissions to ARLO (Acoustics Research Letters Online). Our TC should have lots of good ARLO possibilities since we could have images or animated graphics that would work well on the web. See the ASA website at http://asa.aip.org for more info.
(12) Sandy Poliachik (poliachi@u.washington.edu) reported that the Student Council of the ASA is still going strong and will have a website soon. Stay tuned for more details.
(13) No one had any objections to Signal Processing becoming a full-fledged TC. That measure passed the Technical Council easily later in the week.
The meeting adjourned after about an hour and a quarter.
Respectfully submitted,
E. Carr Everbach, Chair
BU/BV Technical Committee
(Ff you have comments or corrections to these minutes, please send them to me at CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu.)
*** Draft below. Please give your feedback***
Guidelines for use of Computer Projection in Presentations
Acoustical Society of America
Last revised: 8 December 2000
Preamble:
Computer projector resolution (e.g., 600 by 800 pixels) is typically
lower than screen resolution, and, as seen from the rear of a meeting
hall, the image is smaller than that of a computer screen viewed
normally. Contrasts must be enhanced in computer-projected documents
for good visibility, and thin lines are sometimes illegible. The
following guidelines should be observed by all speakers presenting
PowerPoint or equivalent presentations.
1. Use dark backgrounds with lighter (contrasting) lettering, rather than white backgrounds with dark lettering. Avoid excessively "busy" backgrounds, and keep text and figures simple and large.
2. Use all of the available screen area. If a page in portrait orientation is displayed on a (landscape orientation) computer projection, the two sides of the projected image will be blank, effectively shrinking the text size. All documents/figures should be created in a landscape orientation with very thin margins, thereby making maximum use of the (limited) resolution of the computer projector.
3. Avoid thin fonts, including fonts with thin elements (e.g., the horizontal bar of the "e" may be lost because it is less than one pixel wide at the low resolution of the computer projector, thereby registering as a "c"). If using a thin font, make it BOLD to widen the minimum line width.
4. Avoid the use of red, especially on purple or green backgrounds. Viewers with red-green color-blindness will not see figures in red, especially if backed by similar colors.
5. Set your computer's screen resolution to 600 by 800 pixels. If it looks OK, it will probably look OK to your audience during your talk.
6. Put no more than 2 graphs/plots/figures on a single slide. Use large lettering for axis labels and bold fonts for the numbers. Remember that graphics can be animated or quickly toggled among several options: comparisons between figures may be made temporally rather than spatially.
7. Animations often run more slowly on laptops connected to computer video projectors than when not so connected. Test the effectiveness of your animations before your assigned presentation time on the same or identical projection system (e.g., in the computer/video prep room). Avoid real-time calculations in favor of pre-calculation and saving of images.
8. During the session, you should connect your laptop to the video switcher cable during the question period of the previous speaker. It is good protocol to initiate your slide show (e.g., run PowerPoint) immediately once connected, so the audience doesn't have to wait for that. When it is your turn to present, press the button on the switcher corresponding to the appropriate number of the input to which you have connected (indicated on the cord you plugged into your computer). If there are any problems, the session chair or a designated helper will endeavor to assist you, but it is your responsibility to ensure that the technical details have been worked out ahead of time.
9. Make sure you have a backup of your presentation on floppy, ZIP disk, PCMCIA memory card, or equivalent, in case your hard disk crashes or its files become corrupted. Many presenters bring backup slides or overheads of their computer presentation, just in case.
Suggestions regarding specific hardware configurations:
Macintosh
Older Macs require a special adapter to connect the video output port to the standard 15-pin male DIN connector. Make sure you have one with you.
Depending upon the vintage of your Mac, you may have to reboot once it is connected to the computer projector or switcher. Hint: you can reboot while connected to the computer projector in the computer/video prep room in advance of your presentation, then put your computer to sleep. Macs thus booted will retain the memory of this connection when awakened from sleep. Alternatively, you can reboot while connected to the video switcher during the previous speaker's presentation, but it is safer to queue this up in advance of the session.
Depending upon the vintage of your system software, you may find that the default video mode is a side-by-side configuration of monitor windows (the test for this will be that you see no menus or cursor on your desktop; the cursor will slide from the projected image onto your laptop's screen as it is moved). Go to Control Panels, Monitors, configuration, and drag the larger window onto the smaller one. This produces a mirror-image of the projected image on your laptop's screen.
Also depending upon your system software, either the Control Panels will automatically detect the video projector's resolution and frame rate, or you will have to set it manually. If it is not set at a commensurable resolution, the projector may not show an image. Experiment ahead of time with resolution and color depth settings in the computer/video prep room (please don't waste valuable time fiddling with your Control Panel settings during your allotted session time).
IBM PC
Make sure your computer has the standard female 15-pin DIN video output plug. Some computers require an adaptor.
Once physically connected, you'll need to toggle the video display on. Most PCs use either ALT-F5 or F6, as indicated by a little video monitor icon on the appropriate key. Some systems require more elaborate keystroke combinations to activate this feature. Verify your laptop's compatibility with the projector in the computer/video prep room. Likewise, you may have to set your laptop's resolution and color depth via the Monitors Control Panel to match that of the projector, which settings you should verify prior to your session (please don't waste valuable time fiddling with your Control Panel settings during your allotted session time).
Linux
{to be written later, once the procedure is verified}
To Session Chairs: If you can do so, contact presenters to remind them to try out their computer presentations with the same or identical projection system ahead of time. During the session, see that there is a table near the projector for the next laptop user to queue up the connection to the switcher while the current one is answering questions. The best arrangement is to have the projector in the middle of a long table turned sideways so that successive presenters alternate placing their laptops on one side or the other of the projector.