Nonlinear Circuits and Systems Technical Committee (NCAS) – ISCAS’99 Minutes (May 1999)

Monday, May 31st, 1999
12:30-14:00 PM
NOMEUS Room, Renaissance Orlando Resort
ISCAS’99 Orlando, FL

List of attendees:
Dmitry Altshuller, Hideki Asai, Leon O. Chua, Geoffrey Coram, Tetsuo Endo, Rui J. P. de Figueiredo, Douglas R. Frey, Michael Green, Leonid Goldgeisser, Martin Hasler, Peter Kennedy (Chair), Tetsuo Nishi (Chair-elect), Yoshifumi Nishio, Joseph Nossek, Maciej Ogorzalek, Kohshi Okumura, P. A. (Rama) Ramamoorthy, Tamas Roska, Irwin Sandberg, Gianluca Setti, Ljiljana Trajkovic, Joos Vandewalle, Laurens Weiss, and Alan Willson.

AGENDA:

REPORTS:

1. Chair’s report on the past year’s activities of the Technical Committee:

Peter Kennedy gave a short report on the past year’s and the future activities of the Technical Committee:

  • (a) Reports on past conferences and organized special sessions: ISCAS’98, NDES’98 and NOLTA’98
  • (b) Report on the CAS Society short courses initiative
  • (c) Activities for 1999 – 2000 already in progress: We supported ISCAS’99, NDES’99, ECCTD’99, NOLTA’99, and ISCAS’00.

2. Chair’s reports from the meeting of the CAS TC chairs held in Orlando on May 29, 1999:

  • (a) The role of the TCs is to be strengthened. The TCs will be responsible for organizing the tracks at ISCAS. The TCs will also be asked to nominate Associate Editors for the Transactions on Circuits and Systems, to nominate candidates for awards, to propose short courses and Distinguished Lecturers. Funds of the order of USD 1,000 are available for the organization of workshops in emerging areas within the technical domain of the TC.
  • (b) A new concept for the CAS short course has been proposed. All proposed courses will be listed in a catalog from Fall ’99. Any chapter can request a course from the catalog. The CAS society will pay for the speakers’ expenses; the local organizers will pay for local expenses from registration fees or other sources. Proposals for short courses should be sent to Peter Kennedy by August 31, 1999.
  • (c) “State of the art” articles are to be prepared by each of the CAS TC’s. Peter Kennedy is writing an article on emerging research topics in the area of Nonlinear Circuits and Systems. All input received by Peter before July 15, 1999 will be considered for inclusion in this article.

3. Forthcoming special issues of journals:

  • (a) IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals, Special issue on “Nonlinear Theory and its Applications (NOLTA’98)” (devoted, but not restricted, to papers presented at NOLTA’98), Guest Editor: Tohru Kohda, issue scheduled to appear in September 1999.
  • (b) Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing Special issue on “DC operating points of electrical circuits,” Guest Editor: Lj. Trajkovic, issue scheduled to appear by the end of 1999.
  • (c) International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos Special issue on “Chaos Control and Synchronization,” Guest Editor: Guanrong Chen, issue scheduled to appear in 2000.
  • (d) International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications Special issue on “Communications, Information Processing and Control using Chaos,” Guest Editors: Martin Hasler and Joos Vandewalle, issue expected to appear in early 2000.
  • (e) IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems — Part I Proposal of special issue on “Noncoherent Chaotic Communications” Guest Editors: Peter Kennedy and Geza Kolumban. Tentative deadline: November 30th, 1999. After some discussion concerning the title, coverage and potential contributors to the special issue, the proposal was endorsed by the members of the TC.

4. WWW site and mailing list

  • We continue to maintain the majordomo list (automatic mailing system) for the NCAS technical committee members and guests. The list is private, can support geographically diverse membership, and the members can subscribe and un-subscribe via e-mail. It also allows for keeping the list archive and/or digest. It currently has 58 subscribing members. Our email address is: (Click to show email).
  • The NCAS TC WWW page: http://diva.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ljilja/tcncas contains TC news, TC meeting minutes, conference reports, useful information regarding past and future conferences, and links to other sites of interest.

DISCUSSION:

  • Prof. Peter Kennedy proposed to create the position of the Past-chair of the Committee to help the Chair in the organization of activities for promoting the interest on Nonlinear Circuits and Systems among the CAS community. The proposal has been formally accepted and on suggestion of Prof. Alan Willson the NCAS TC Bylaws will be changed accordingly.
  • Prof. Rui J. P. de Figueiredo announced changes to the publications of the CAS society:
    • (a) “IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems—Part I: Circuits, Networks, and Information Processing” will cover the theory and applications of circuits and systems. Prof. Swamy is the new Editor.
    • (b) “IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems—Part II: Integrated Circuits and Systems” will focus on design, analysis, implementation, and testing. Prof. Toumazou is the new Editor.
    • (c) The page budgets for both parts of the Transactions have been increased.
    • (d) Mike Sain is the new editor of the “Circuits and Devices” magazine. Ron Chen is the new features editor.

Elections of the TC officers (term ending at ISCAS 2000): 
Prof. Tetsuo Nishi was elected Chair.
Prof. Peter Kennedy was appointed Past-chair.
Prof. Ron Chen was appointed Chair-elect.
Dr. Gianluca Setti was elected Secretary.

Prepared by: Peter Kennedy, Tetsuo Nishi, Gianluca Setti, Ljiljana Trajkovic.