SPRING 1991 in This Newsletter You Will Find: 1. Announcement and 2Nd
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NEWSLETTER - SPRING 1991 In this Newsletter you will find: 1. Announcement and 2nd Call for Papers for Physics Computing ’91 2. Announcement of the 14th International Conference on the Numerical Simulation of Plasmas 3. Announcement of the 4th International Conference on Computational Physics in Prague 4. In Memory of Sid Fernbach 5. Transition to Divisional Status Expected 6. Fellowship Nomination Process 7. Message from Chair 8. Other News Items 9. Roster of Executive Committee 10. Voting Instructions and Election Information PHYSICS COMPUTING ’91 including The 3rd International Conference on Computational Physics Announcement and Second Call for Papers The Topical Group on Computational Physics has combined forces with the editors of the AIP journal Computers in Physics to bring you a full week on the many aspects of the use of computers in physics including the traditional topics of computational physics. The meeting will convene on 10 June 1991 in the San Jose Convention Center and run through 14 June 1991. San Jose is located some 40 miles southeast of San Francisco at the south end of the San Francisco Bay, and is in the heart of “Silicon” Valley. The universities, national laboratories, and the large assortment of computer hardware and software companies in the region make San Jose an ideal venue for this meeting. The meeting program consists of plenary, oral, poster, and tutorial sessions, with many invited papers being given in the oral sessions. We are fortunate to have D. Allan Bromley, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, to give our Keynote Address. Our meeting format consists of several 90-minute sessions arranged such that the plenary sessions do not run in parallel with other sessions and with 3-hour poster sessions held in the exhibit hall. We have arranged 11 plenary and 70-plus invited papers on the methodology of using computers in physics research and education. We are seeking presentations that emphasize computational methodology and discourage papers that only emphasize results. There are presentations with applications to most branches of physics, including acoustics, astronomy, astrophysics, atmospheric physics, atomic physics, biophysics, chemical physics, climatology, condensed matter physics, fluid dynamics, geophysics, high energy physics meteorology, nuclear physics, optics, physics teaching, polymer physics, plasma physics and vacuum science. Rather than organize sessions by physics specialties, we are arranging them by methodology. A partial list of these session topics includes few-body problems, Lagrangian methods, visualization in fluid dy- namics, spectral and spectral elements methods, finite difference and finite element methods, molecular dynamics, acceleration algorithms, experimental particle physics, gene and protein sequencing, particle methods, fast multipole methods, real time computing, quantum Monte Carlo, parallel computing, visualization, computing environments, artificial intelligence, neural networks, physics education, symbolic computing, signal processing, Monte Carlo meth- odsinstatistical mechanics, large matrix manipulations, chemical dynamics, chaos, growth and fractals, and cellular automata. Monday, June 10th, is being largely devoted to tutorial presentations (mini-courses) each of three hours duration. Classes on topics of interest to the physics computing community are being offered for a separate fee of $75.00 for each three hour class. Below we give some further details under the heading “TUTORIAL PROGRAM DETAILS.” Course notes and other materials will be furnished by the instructors and are included in the fee. Sign-ups may be made on the enclosed pre-registration form or at the registration desk up until the start of each course session. Classes with three or fewer students will be subject to cancellation. CALL FOR PAPERS We are soliciting presentations in the areas mentioned above. The cross disciplinary nature of our conference is facilitated by presentations that stress methods so we strongly discourage offerings that emphasize results. In keeping with this authors are encouraged to follow the 10-80-10 rule in apportioning their presentations. This means roughly 10% on the theory or background, 80% on methodology, and 10% on results. Please send your abstract of approximately 100 words to the Meeting Secretariat: Ms. Martelle Mays P. O. Box 5509 L-561 Livermore CA 94550 USA FAX (415) 422 0435 E-mail: [email protected] It is not necessary to conform to the usual APS abstract format because we are electronically scanning and retypesetting all of our abstracts. Abstracts may be sent by mail, FAX or electronic mail. Most presentations will be scheduled for poster sessions, which the organizers feel affords the best medium of presentation for contributed papers. Authors preferring oral presentation may indicate this preference at the bottom of their abstract submission. The poster sessions will be held in the large Hall of Exhibits while the contributed oral papers will be given in one of the parallel oral sessions. All abstracts received by the Deadline of May 10, 1991 will be assigned sessions and appear in the Proceedings of Abstracts to be distributed at the Meeting. (Abstracts which we recieved prior to February 1st will also appear in the Bulletin of the APS.) Post-deadline submissions that are received after May 10th may be scheduled for presentation on a space available basis and will not appear in the proceedings. MEETING REGISTRATION Registration for Physics Computing ’91 may be accomplished by using the enclosed Pre-registration Form or by registering on-site. Attendees are advised to pre-register, at a discount, by returning the enclosed Pre-registration Form together with payment prior to May 10, 1991. Sign-ups and payment for the Tutorial Sessions may also be done with this form. On-site registration, in the 1st floor lobby of the San Jose Convention Center, will be available from 2PM Sunday June 9th. All registration fee refund requests must be submitted in writing to Lawrence Merrill, Meeting Arrangements Manager, the AIP Special Programs Department, 500 Sunnyside Blvd., Woodbury, NY 11797, no later than 1 June 1991. HOUSING Blocks of rooms, at special discount rates, have been reserved for conference attendees and their guests at the Fairmont, the Hotel De Anza, the Hyatt and the Holiday Inn. The Fairmont will be the headquarters hotel for the conference, although all of the technical sessions will be held in the San Jose Convention Center. All hotels are either within walking distance or 5 to 10 minutes away from the Convention Center by local rail transportation. To ensure receiving the special discount rate, please use the hotel reservation form enclosed here and book your room no later than 15 May 1991. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION TraveltoSan Jose We have made arrangements with AMERICAN AIRLINES for SPECIAL DISCOUNT FARES for those attending the Physics Computing ’91 Conference. Discounts from 35% to 45% are available, off regular day coach fares and 5% off most promotional fares. To obtain these rates please call American at 1-800-433-1790 and ask for the travel representative at STAR NUMBER S-0161B3. These special fares are available only within Canada and the USA. You will be informed of the most economical and convenient flights to San Jose. Hotel shuttle buses are available to each of the conference hotels from the San Jose Airport. Taxis are a reasonable alternative as the hotels are within a few miles of San Jose Airport. Attendees arriving at the San Francisco Airport, which is approximately 35 miles away, can make reservations with Bayporter Express at 415-467-1800 for transportation to San Jose. Local Information The San Jose Convention and Visitors Bureau will be sponsoring a local information booth in the registration area to provide information on restaurants and local attractions. Placement Center The American Institute of Physics will operate a Placement Center as a service to employers and to potential employees. Further information will be available at the Registration Desk. Open Business Meeting On Thursday afternoon from 17:00-18:00 in Ballroom A an informal business meeting will be held for the meeting organizers and attendees to exchange views. We solicit feedback on how to better organize meetings like this in future years. Of particular interest is the question regarding our present plan to hold biannual meetings because there is some interest in having it on an annual basis. Town Meeting for NERSC Users Users of the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center (NERSC) and other interested parties are invited to participate in a Town Meeting where the Users may exchange ideas with Representatives from the NERSC facility. The purpose of this is not only to facilitate communication, but is also to build User Profiles. These profiles are then used in Strategic Planning. The Town Meeting will be held in Ballroom A-1 at 8:00pm on Tuesday, June 11th. Exhibit Show Several vendors of computer hardware and software as well as other organizations will participate in the Exhibit Show, which will be held for three days (11-13 June) in exhibit Hall I. It will be held in conjunction with the poster sessions of the technical program and should provide valuable resources for many of our future computational needs. A partial list of the exhibitors includes: • Addison-Wesley • Hewlett-Packard • Prescience Corporation • Apple • Horstmann Software Design • Soft Warehouse • American Institute of Physics • IBM • Springer-Verlag • Computer