Minutes of the Business Meeting of the SIAM Activity Group on Imaging
Science
San Diego, CA
July 7, 2008

The meeting commenced at 7:07 PM, with Luminita Vese, SIAG/IS Chair,
presiding.  Also representing the SIAG were Stacey Levine, Program
Director, and Rick Chartrand, Secretary.

Attendance, not counting the officers or those milling about the
bar service at the back of the room (or both), started around 13
and grew to about 20.

The meeting began with a presentation by Luminita concerning some
statistics and recent history of the SIAG.  This presentation will be
made available at the SIAG website
(http://siags.siam.org/siagis/ISannual/SIAG_IS_7_6_08_report_working.pdf/).  

The first point of discussion was the large number of parallel talks
(roughly nine for this conference).  Nearly everyone reported missing
talks solely due to scheduling.  It was pointed out that having
sessions scheduled on opposite sides of the Town and Country grounds
exacerbated the problem.  Most felt that returning to a schedule like
that of IS06, where there were 3 minisymposium blocks per day instead
of 2, would be better.  Margaret Cheney, Organizing Committee
co-Chair for IS08, advocated extending the "10 minutes + poster"
format, used at IS08 for contributed paper sessions, be extended to
the minisymposia.  A consensus seemed to form around the notion of
having this be an option for MS organizers, which would alleviate
scheduling issues if it were to catch on.  This was seen as better
than extending the conference.  Also raised was something closer to an
IEEE format, where contributions are submitted and relatively few
chosen for oral presentations, with the rest (or the rest of those
accepted) being presented as posters.  A result is that the poster
sessions are considered a fundamental part of the meeting, and not
being of low prestige.  It was suggested that one could include a
laptop with the poster presentation.

Another discussion concerned the location, timing, and content of
IS10.  Many seemed to agree that the DC area would foster
participation by government agencies, tempered by the high cost of the
DC area.  The notion of a meeting in Europe was seen as complicated
for reasons of cost, the different academic calendar, and foreign
travel being difficult for government employees, this also being a
problem for a meeting in Canada.  As for timing, July
is difficult due to the organizational burden of the SIAM annual
meeting.  IS06 and IS04 were in May.  No consensus appeared to be
reached.  Several felt that it would be valuable to solicit
participation from areas not well represented at IS, such as
astronomy, computer vision, or generally those who have real data
challenges.  Another question was whether to have a published
proceedings, as in IEEE and other activity groups.  This creates a
large reviewing workload.  It was felt that the Program Managers panel
should be held later in the meeting, and be followed by a reception
that would allow for greater interaction.

A suggestion all felt was useful was that speakers be asked for their
slides, in order that they be posted on a SIAM website.  This will be
followed up upon.

Other suggestions included the idea of a prize for the best imaging
paper to appear in a journal, as chosen by a committee from among
nominations.  Making this be for young researchers was thought to be
more valuable.  Another was to have an edited publication instead of
the e-mail newsletter.  No consensus appeared to emerge regarding
these suggestions.

The meeting concluded at 7:51.

Rick Chartrand, Secretary