The meeting was attended by 16 people. The items of business were:
(1) Thanks to B&B special-session organizers (Ibrahim Hallaj and Thomas Szabo for "New techniques in biomedical imaging," Christy Holland, Pierre Mourad, and Suk Wang Yoon for "Ultrasound for disease treatment and diagnosis," and Robin Cleveland for "Lithotripsy") and especially for those who had to fill in for Pierre Mourad (Larry Crum, Carr Everbach, and Glynn Holt). Special congratulations, kudos, and high-fives to Robin Cleveland (R. Bruce Lindsay Award) and Larry Crum (Raleigh-Helmholtz Award), for making the awards ceremony at the plenary session seem very B&Bish. Also thanks to Carr Everbach (what a guy!) for organizing the student paper contest at Atlanta and for Bob Apfel, Floyd Dunn, Wes Nyborg, David Blackstock, Mark Hamilton and Ron Roy for contributions to the encomia for Larry and Robin's awards. Special thanks also to Ibrahim Hallaj who was the TPOM representative and arranged the papers into sessions.
(2) The student paper contest organized by Carr Everbach in Atlanta was very successful, with 14 entries and 17 judges. First prize of $400 goes to Constantin C. Coussios for "Ultrasonic scattering from blood as a means of measuring hemolysis;" second prize of $250 goes to Xufeng Xi for "Dynamic photoelastic study of the transient stress fields in solids during shock wave lithotripsy;" and third prize of $100 goes to Dahilia Sokolov, for "Bubble translation due to radiation force in SWL." Recipients should receive their checks within a few weeks, and notices will be placed in JASA and Echoes. In Columbus, it was suggested that there be separate prizes for categories of undergraduate, master's and doctoral students, but there were insufficient numbers in each category to make this feasbile (2 undergraduates, 15 doctoral students). Congratulations to all who presented an exceptionally fine series of papers at this meeting.
(3) B&B Sessions for the Newport Beach, CA, meeting to take place 4-8 December 2000 at a Marriott Hotel:
As discussed first in the Berlin B&B TC meeting, we are emphasizing the Spring ASA meeting insofar as most of our special sessions will be placed there. However, it was decided at the Columbus TC meeting (see the B&B website for minutes if you don't have them) that we would try something unusual at each Fall meeting, starting with Newport Beach. So we are planning a "topical meeting," which will be a one-day (Monday) colloquiem and discussion on the topic "Physics of Echo-Contrast Agents," to be put together by a subcommitee chaired by Carr Everbach. The structure of this meeting was discussed, and most attendees supported the idea of dividing the topic into six short sub-topics: modeling of echo-contrast agents, imaging techniques using echo-contrast agents, in-vitro use of echo-contrast agents, bioeffects of echo-contrast agents, novel uses of echo-contrast agents and an overview. We will have only one scheduled talk for each sub-topic, a short (<<15 min.) inspirational talk by one invited speaker (whose abstract will appear in the meeting program). Following the kick-off talk, a three-person panel (with moderator) would initiate discussion for about an hour on each sub-topic. Three such sub-topics in the morning and three in the afternoon would comprise the day-long meeting, and no contributed papers would be presented. No abstracts other than the six invited kick-off talks would appear in the program for this day-long topical meeting, but a contributed paper session later in the week would allow presentations of traditional 15-minute talks by participants.
Other than this day-long topical session, there will be one special session: "Detection and Characterization of Bubbles, Acoustic Cavitation, and Associated Physical Effects" - Ron Roy and Tim Leighton (wins the prize for longest name!). It will derive largely from the work of SWG-22, the ASA specialty Working Group that Ron Roy and Wes Nyborg have been working on, focused on cavitation detection and monitoring. It will probably be broken into a morning and afternoon session.
Larry Crum volunteered to deliver the B&B lecture in "Hot Topics," our turn for which will come up again at the Newport Beach meeting. Please get your hot topic suggestions in to him (lac@apl.washington.edu).
Mike Bailey was unanimously elected to be the TPOM representative, so he will have to visit Newport Beach during August 11-12, 2000 to help sort papers and arrange rooms. We have $1000 in technical intiative funds (year 2000) for reimbursing the travel expenses of invited speakers to this meeting.
(4) As per our Columbus minutes, we have purchased the AIUM mailing list for the purposes of mass-mailing a subset of AIUM members who might be interested in ASA B&B (Elaine Moran says her staff can do the mailing and absorb the postage costs). Carr Everbach circulated a draft of the AIUM letter for comments at the meeting; the text of it is included below for your further feedback (please offer your views before 15 June 2000).
(5) Future ASA meetings will be as follows:
The proposal to shift to an 8-month meeting interval was rejected by Executive Committee.
For the Chicago meeting, the following B&B special sessions were suggested:
(6) Discussion centered on the inadequacy of the $500 travel funds for invited speakers and the silliness of the $50 fee for AV equipment for non-ASA invited speakers. Further frustrations involving rental for computer projection systems were aired, with a serious suggestion that ASA consider purchasing its own. At the Technical Committee meeting following the Atlanta sessions, B&B put forth and was granted a technical initiative for $3000 to buy one, with the proviso that when we are not using it, other TCs may do so. It will be the responsibility of the B&B chair to ensure that the computer projector we purchase make it to each meeting. Once again, other TCs are watching with interest our committee's innovation and leadership.
(7) Sandy Poliachik was B&B's student laison to Pat Kuhl's experimental student council (she was picked by a subcommittee of B&B). Sandy was not present to report the activities of that group, but the student council intends to convene again at the Newport Beach meeting, and so Sandy's term will last through that meeting.
(8) Larry Crum's previous proposals for an "Affiliate Membership" or "Subscribing Membership" were modified to create "E-Associates" who would receive all on-line products of the ASA for a discounted rate of $60. The goal is to foster participation and communication by overseas acousticians in the ASA. Some concerns of full members "reverting" to the cheaper option still exists among technical council members, but the experiment will go forward.
(9) The "Books plus" committee is looking for out of print classics to reprint. Phil Marston had proposed publication of Acoustics by Timkin, which about 10 members said they would buy if the ASA reprinted it. Bob Apfel reminded us all that ARLO is going well, and that we should submit papers to it. He also noted that videoclips were especially effective on ARLO and that B&B imaging papers might include them. Members were asked if they used the Reference to Contemporary Papers in Acoustics (RCPA) supplement to JASA, and most indicated that they used it rarely. One member said he would hate to see it discontinued in paper form, while another suggested that ASA create and offer a web search engine to find the equivalent information on-line. Attendees were reminded that the green membership directory is no longer sent automatically to members, so that if you want a copy, you have to pay an extra $10 (for paper). Folks who pay for access to JASA on-line can access the on-line version of the directory, which uses a database query format.
(10) The results of the member survey, now on the ASA website, indicate that the career services offered by the society are at the bottom of the benefits that members value. The Executive Committee would like to improve on this by using the ASA Web pages to introduce the area of acoustics to college students, post-docs and ASA members who may want to reposition their careers. To do this, they would like us to gather information about typical jobs in B&B. Some of the information that would be of interest to students as well as job applicants are:
Bob Apfel suggested that 150-word stories about their backgrounds might make interesting and compelling reading.
The meeting adjourned after about an hour and a quarter.
Respectfully submitted,
E. Carr Everbach, Chair
(if you have comments or corrections to these minutes, please send them to me at CEVERBA1@swarthmore.edu)
*** draft letter to go out June, 2000. Please give your feedback***
Dear AIUM member:
You are receiving this letter because you have expressed an interest in the fundamental processes and mechanisms of ultrasound imaging or therapy. For over seventy years, the Acoustical Society of America has been the premier organization for the study of acoustics, and recently we have formed a technical committee on Biomedical Ultrasound and Bioresponse to Vibration. We wish to inform you about upcoming opportunities to share your interests and expertise with other experts in the field.
The Technical Committee on Biomedical Ultrasound/Bioresponse to Vibration includes individuals whose interests lie in the use of ultrasound for biomedical applications. Members include research scientists, engineers, professors, physicians, consultants, and students of acoustics. Recent topics of special sessions at our meetings have included therapeutic applications, lithotripsy, and heating in diagnostic ultrasound.
Our upcoming meetings are listed below. In our meeting in Newport Beach in Orange County, CA, we will hold an all-day topical meeting on the physics of echo-contrast agents. Experts will discuss (and debate) what is known and not known about how contrast agents behave in response to ultrasonic waves, how images are formed (or might be improved), and how new agents might be designed to accomplish other purposes, such as ultrasound-enhanced drug delivery or gene therapy. Also at that meeting, we will have a special session on detection and characterization of bubbles, acoustic cavitation, and associated physical effects.
In our Chicago meeting we plan to offer special sessions on beamforming to correct for tissue inhomogeneities, novel imaging techniques (tissue harmonic imaging, sonoelasticity, etc.), image-guided ultrasound therapy, and the bioeffects of pulsed ultrasound. Regular contributed paper sessions will cover other topics in biomedical ultrasound.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Acoustical Society of America, please visit our website at asa.aip.org or contact us through the above address. We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
E. Carr Everbach
Biomedical Ultrasound Technical Committee Chair