Subject: Re: Thank you for accepting a PC member.
From: "Saulius Maskeliunas" <[email-masked]>
To: "Akira IMADA" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:16:53 +0200

Hello, Akira,

On 17 Nov 2005 at 20:03,  you wrote:
> Today, I have written 4 e-mails asking each of them a plenary
> talk for our conference. All of them are my old friends, more or
> less, but it's been somewhat of a tough task to attract their
> interest to join to our conference.

If you will have not enough of them - I can help you inviting 
Sarunas Raudys http://www.science.mii.lt/mii/raudys/ ; he is of 
sufficient 'size' and relevance, e.g. he had a plenary talk at 
IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks 
(IJCNN'98), Alaska, USA (co-authored with Prof. Shun-ichi 
Amari) "Effect of initial values in symple perception".

> > prof. Vydunas Saltenis did not replied to me on Monday; 
> > according to our agreement, that means - he do not likes to be
> > a PC member.
> 
> No problem, as I already mentioned.
> 
> It's interesting, however, not for the first time though, to see
> here the way in which "they suggest NO with a silence."
Yes; it is more subtle sort of negative answer :-)
 
> > With one condition: to review 1 [not zero] or more articles
> > :-) Last year I was asked to be a PC member of ECAI; that
> > means obligation to find reviewers; and I've managed that; so,
> > please send me paper(s) to review for your Conference, too :-)
> 
> Thanks. I will do my best to pick up paper(s) that suite most
> for your specialties.
... or/and the difficult paper(s) for you to classify.

> > Everybody will understand the absence of it; but, you can put
> > just one HTML page on the server:
> > http://iit.bstu.by/icnnai-2006.html with already available
> > infomration - your first CFP; leaving any improvements/changes
> > for the later time.
> 
> Well, I ask them to put it, tetatively, at 
> http://neuro.bstu.by/icnnai2006/test-0-01.html, 
> and already it's visible,
not from my computer; at least - not now (I've probed few times 
today). But that is not a page, but server problem, because 
none of
http://neuro.bstu.by/icnnai2006/
http://neuro.bstu.by/
http://www.bstu.by/
are accessible, too; i.e.:
"The connection has timed out.
The server at neuro.bstu.by is taking too long to respond."

One more suggestion: if you will change the conference URL - 
let leave auto-forwarding link to it at the adress 
http://iit.bstu.by/icnnai-2006.html 
(which you have mentioned in the CFP).

> but I'm thinking of an automatic
> submissions and automatic review system via the web-page. As
> such, we still need a lot of tests.

I've probed to search "paper review management system" with 
Google; two hits (i.e. what is available for free):
1) http://dagwood.cs.byu.edu/PaperReview/
2) http://www.zakongroup.com/technology/openconf.shtml 
(= http://www.openconf.org/ )
The last one was used by my Estonian friend - prof. Hele-Mai 
Haav <[email-masked]>, organising 9th East-European 
Conference on Advances in Databases and Information Systems 
http://www.cs.ioc.ee/adbis2005/
http://www.cs.ioc.ee/adbis2005/openconf/openconf_authors.php
That means - it is really good, not outdated.

And, one more possible choice:
3) good colleague of mine Prof. Olegas Vasilecas 
<[email-masked]> from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University 
with his doctoral student has developed paper review management 
system, which was used at ISD'2005 http://isl.vtu.lt/isd2004/ 
and will be used in our BalticDB&IS'2006 
http://isl.vtu.lt/dbis2006/
So, if you would like - very probably you could make the 
agreement with them, in order to prepare this system for your 
conferece, too. If you would be interested - I can talk with 
Olegas about that, clearing up his attitude on this matter.

> Also what's in mind is first-come-first-serve system in
> reviewing process, not yet determined though..
You mean reviewing a paper don't waiting for deadline?
In my opinion, knowing all submitted papers (and all available 
reviewers) - it is much easier to distribute papers, to find 
some sort of 'optimal distribution', than binding reviewers 
before knowing what other papers will be submitted.
 
> As for the document that I had promissed you to read and give
> comments if any, please give me a little more time.
That is not urgent at all, and low priority task:
I've send that classification document to other members of 
Commission, there was no comments yet, and the date of next 
meeting is not fixed yet.

With best wishes,
Saulius