Radio Science Bulletin 313 - June 2005 - URSI

y the Special Section Editors, and authors were theninvited to submit manuscripts. In keeping with the usualRadio Science policy, all papers were reviewed before thefinal decisions were made for publication. We wish toexpress our appreciation to the local organizing committee,the technical program committee and the session chairs fortheir advice and recommendations. We also thank thereviewers for their time and efforts and the authors for theirtimely work which contributed greatly to the success of theSymposium and of this special section of Radio Science.The venues for the symposia and special sections ofRadio Science which contain selected papers are thefollowing:1953 Montreal, Quebec, Canada (microwave optics)1954 Ann Arbor, Michigan1955 Toronto, Ontario, Canada1956 Copenhagen, Denmark (electromagnetic theory andantennas)1957 Delft, The Netherlands1958 Stresa, Italy1959 Tbilisi, USSR1960 London, England1961 Stanford, California1962 Munich, Germany (Radio Science, 16(6), 1981)1963 Santiago de Compostella, Spain (Radio Science,19(5), 1984)1964 Budapest, Hungary (Radio Science, 22(6) 1987)1965 Stockholm, Sweden (Radio Science, 26(1-2) 1991)1966 Sydney, Australia (Radio Science, 28(5-6) 1993)1967 St. Petersburg, Russia (Radio Science, 31(6) 1996)1968 Thessaloniki, Greece (Radio Science, 35(2) 2000)1969 Victoria, Canada (Radio Science, 38(2) 2003)2004 Pisa, Italy ( Radio Science, 40(6) 2005)Business meeting at the 2004 EMTS.Attendance : Prof. Makoto Ando, Commission B,Chair, Prof. Lotfollah Shafai, Commission B, Vice-Chair,About 50 members of Commission BSchedule:Business meeting I: 18:00-19:00, 24 May 2004Business meeting II: 18:00-19:00, 26 May 2004Closing ceremony: 18:20-18:45, 27 May 2004The Commission B Chair, Makoto Ando opens themeeting at 18:00 p.m. on Monday 24 May 2004 andwelcomes all members who are interested in and supportingCommission B activities.Request for Proposals of Venue for the 2010 EMTSThe procedure of request for proposal of Venue 2010EMTS was announced which had been suggested by the e-mail to national representatives. A formal request forproposals concerning the venue for the 2010 EMTS will besent out during the fall of 2004. The recently establishedComm. B procedure for handling the choice of the venuewill be followed. Thus, a small group ( 2-3 people) will beformed to go through the proposals and then to select twoof them which will then be voted upon by the Comm. Brepresentatives. The winner will be determined by a simplemajority of the votes received. The request for venueproposals will contain a list of aspects that the proposersshould address. The vote is expected to take place in late2004 or early 2005 (Commission B Business meeting in2005 GA, at the latest).Proposals and vote for new Comm. B vicechairfor 2005- 2008The procedure for Proposals and vote for new Comm.B vice-chair for 2005-2008 was explained by MakotoAndo. At the next URSI GA in New Delhi, India, October2005, Comm. B will make the final vote concerning the newvice-chair for 2005-2008. The URSI requirements are thatall Comm. B representatives shall have an opportunity tonominate candidates and that Comm. B shall present (atleast) two names and the order of preference between them.Each Comm. B representative has one vote.Comm. B takes a two-step procedure. In the firstround all the nominated candidates participate and eachComm. B representative votes for two candidates. Eachrepresentative’s first choice will receive 2 points and theirsecond choice will receive 1 point. The two ( or possiblythree ) candidates who get the largest number of points willadvance to the second round of voting. In the second round,the representatives similarly give two points to their firstchoice and 1 point to their second choice.Comm. B wants to encourage that a sufficient numberof candidates are nominated and, therefore, the meetingrecommended that a Comm. B Search Committee (CBSC)consisting of three Comm. B last chairs should be formedwith the task of making sure that enough candidates arenominated. Past chairs Chalmers Butler and Staffan Stromwill be invited to form CBSC with the current chair MakotoAndo.The request for nominations will be sent out duringthe fall of 2004 and the second round of voting should takeplace early in 2005. Formally the votes are counted at theGA and the Comm. B representatives then have a possibilityto change their votes concerning the second round at the GAif they wish to do so.Preparations for the 2007 EMTS inAlexandria, EgyptSaid .E. El-Khami, chair of the Local OrganisingCommittee reported the progress of the preparations for the2007 EMTS in Alexandria, Egypt. He also mentioned thatComm. B scientists of Egyptian origin who now workabroad could form an international advisory group with thegoal of providing the LOC in Alexandria with supportconcerning different aspects of the symposium preparations.Several suggestions for local organization of the symposiumwere provided from the floor based upon the experiences inPisa.TheRadio Science Bulletin No 313 (June, 2005) 51