Nonlinear Circuits and Systems Technical Committee (NCAS) – ISCAS’10 Minutes (June 2010)

June 1, 2010

Members in Attendance (22):
Mario di Bernardo
Sergio Callegari
Orla Feely
Zbigniew Galias (Chair)
Michael Green
Martin Hasler
Geza Kolumban
Francis Lau
Tony Lawrance
Henry Leung
Xiang Li
Jinhu Lu
Wolfgang Mathis
Yoshifumi Nishio
Josef Nossek
Maciej Ogorzalek
Hiroo Sekiya
Gianluca Setti
Marco Storace
Wallace Tang
Ljiljana Trajkovic
Yoko Uwate

Observers (2):
Jan Bremer
Heinz Koeppl

Agenda:
1. Chair’s welcome
2. Welcome to new members
3. Report on activities during the period from ISCAS 2009 to ISCAS 2010 (Z. Galias)
4. Report on paper submission/acceptance rate for NCAS track at ISCAS 2010 (F. Lau and H. Leung)
5. Election of officers for the term 2010-2011.
6. Any other business

  • 1. Chair’s welcome
    The Chair welcomed members to the Annual Meeting of the Technical Committee on Nonlinear Circuits and Systems (TC-NCAS). 
  • 2. Welcome to new members
    Shortly before the meeting, G. Setti had proposed Dr. Heinz Koeppl as a new member, but this proposal had not yet been considered by the Officers. It was agreed that it would be considered by the Officers after the conference. 
  • 3. Report on activities during the period from ISCAS 2009 to ISCAS 2010
    The draft TC-NCAS 2009-2010 Annual Report to the IEEE CAS Society had been prepared by Zbigniew Galias, TC Chair, and circulated to members prior to the meeting.Key points were:

– During the period covered by the report, members of TC-NCAS co-edited one book, wrote two book chapters, edited one special issue in CAS related journals, organized/took part in the organization of several conferences and workshops, organized several special and invited sessions, and delivered several invited lectures in numerous major conferences and workshops related to Circuits and Systems.

- The TC-NCAS web page http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/_ljilja/tcncas/ contains links to annual reports, meeting minutes, TC news, and a list of e-mail addresses and web pages of members. The TC-NCAS mailing list address is (Click to show email). The list currently contains 67 e-mail addresses of NCAS Technical Committee members and guests. Members may subscribe or unsubscribe by sending an e-mail to (Click to show email).

– Members were asked to notify Zbigniew Galias of any missing or erroneous information by June 15, 2010. In addition, the Chair reported that TC Chairs had been asked to include within their report a vision for the TC, including a discussion of scientific trends in the area, and how the field is anticipated to evolve. Members wishing to contribute to this discussion were invited to send their input to Zbigniew Galias, also by June 15, 2010.

– Mario di Bernardo suggested that upcoming events, books and special issues of relevance to TC-NCAS should be advertised in advance to committee members and listed on the website, rather than just noting them after the fact. It was agreed that members should convey all such information to the Secretary at the appropriate time. The Secretary will email members periodically with a list of upcoming deadlines, events and publications, along with a reminder to submit further information to him. He will also liaise with Ljiljana Trajkovic, who will arrange the posting of the material on the website, including links to other relevant websites.

– In a further discussion about the hosting of the website, it was agreed that the site will continue to be hosted at UC Berkeley, linked back to the CAS Society website.

  • 4. Report on paper submission/acceptance rate for NCAS track at ISCAS 2010 

Francis Lau and Henry Leung reported that there were 2058 submissions in total to ISCAS 2010, of which 105 were submitted to the NCAS track. (This figure does not include submissions to the 3 Special Sessions relevant to TC- NCAS.) Compared with ISCAS 2009 (which had a total of 1631 submissions and 69 NCAS track submissions), this represents a 26% increase in the total number of submissions and a 52% increase in submissions to the NCAS track. Out of the 105 NCAS track submissions, a total of 45 were accepted – 30 lectures and 15 posters. The acceptance rate was 43%, which is comparable to that of other tracks. On average, each paper was assigned to 4.1 reviewers, and 3.5 reviews were returned.TC members were please to note the significant increase in submissions to the NCAS track, which was notably larger than the percentage increase in submissions to the conference overall. This was taken as a sign of the strength of the NCAS track.

  • 5. Election of officers for the term 2010-2011.

The Chair reported the proposal of the officers that Hiroo Sekiya be the Track Chair for ISCAS 2011, and members unanimously agreed to the proposal. Other officers for 2010-11 were elected according to the long-standing rotational rule. The new TC-NCAS officers for 2010-11 are:Chair Henry Leung
Chair-elect Orla Feely
Secretary Francis Lau
ISCAS 2011 Hiroo Sekiya
Track Chair
Past Chair Zbigniew Galias
 

  • 6. Any other business

– Zbigniew Galias reported that at the meeting of TC Chairs it was suggested that Committees with large memberships and small submission rates to ISCAS should seek to reduce their membership list. A number of mechanisms for this were described, such as the adoption of rules defining active membership.- Ljiljana Trajkovic reported that since ISCAS 2009 she had emailed the existing TC-NCAS membership list, asking members to indicate if they wished to remain active. This resulted in a reduction of the membership list from 110 members to 67.

– There was general agreement that TC-NCAS does not need to take further action to reduce membership, other than to repeat Ljiljana Trajkovic’s action every 2-3 years.

– Zbigniew Galias also reported the suggestion to TC Chairs that each TC have a sub-committee responsible for nominating and ranking candidates for the Distinguished Lecturer Program (DLP). There was general agreement that in TC-NCAS the officers will continue to carry out this duty. Ljiljana Trajkovic suggested that the officers might seek to proactively solicit DLP candidates from the TC, rather than waiting for nominations.

Prepared by Orla Feely, June 2010.
(A copy of these minutes will be posted on the TCNCAS Web site: http://eecs.berkeley.edu/~ljilja/tcncas/writeups.html.)