Letter to Presidents and Representatives of Member Societies of ICIAM
Keyfitz Letter Number 5, 2013-03-06
Dear Society President, Dear Representative of a Member Society,
This letter contains two items of immediate importance: a proposed
amendment to the bylaws, which is to be discussed at the Board meeting
in Beijing, and a reminder to ICIAM representatives to make their
plans to attend that meeting.
Topics of this letter:
1) Bylaws Amendment.
2) 2013 ICIAM Board Meeting, 11 May 2013,
and Workshop 10 May 2013. Second Announcement
3) Call for Nominations for ICIAM Prizes
4) Call for nominations for ICIAM President
5) Call for applications for ICIAM Fellowships
6) Request for articles for the ICIAM Newsletter
7) Request to check and update information
8) Access to the internal website
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1) Proposed Amendments to the ICIAM Bylaws
As required by the current bylaws, these proposed amendments are
being circulated to Member Society Presidents and Representatives
two months in advance of the 2013 ICIAM Board meeting, for
consideration and possible adoption there. These amendments are
proposed as a result of deliberations by a committee formed by
the Board; its members are David Abraham, Alain Damlamian, Irene
Fonseca, Michael Guenther, Barbara Keyfitz, Jill Pipher, and
Domingo Tarzia. The officers provided valuable input. Members
are expected to discuss these amendments within their societies,
so as to prepare to debate them in Beijing. For this purpose,
a copy of the current by-laws, and a draft of what the amended
by-laws would state, are provided.
A summary of the changes is as follows.
Articles 2.2.1, 2.2.3, 3.2(a), 3.2(b), 3.2(c), 3.3(a), 3.3(b), 5.1
concern changes to voting. Following the expressed wish of the
Board to find a mechanism for every member to have a vote, it was
determined that
(i) voting power should be proportional to size, as measured
by member dues
(ii) a representative present at a meeting should be allowed
to cast all the votes of their society
(iii) the number of representatives should continue to be
determined by the size of the society, as in the original bylaws.
The committee preferred, by a narrow vote, to recommend
a ratio of 6:3:1, and to adjust the dues structure accordingly.
The alternative 4:2:1, following the current dues structure,
also has some proponents.
Since representatives occasionally take on the duty of representing
a second member society which is unable to send a representative,
the committee felt strongly that one should add, in Article 2.2.3,
the proviso that no-one should cast votes for more than one society,
as this would defeat part of the purpose of the amendment, which is
to encourage small member societies to participate actively in ICIAM
governance.
Two unrelated, minor changes were also recommended.
#1. Article 3.2(a). A second change is proposed to this article,
to make the criteria for membership as a small associate society
consistent with the membership criteria of the other four classes
of members, by setting a floor, not a ceiling, for qualifying.
There are two reasons for this: without a floor, there is the
absurd possibility that some society with NO interest in applied
mathematics might apply for membership; in addition, the current
version of 3.2(a) would in principle prevent a society from
joining at a lower class of membership than that for which it
qualifies. We do not see any reason for such a prohibition, and,
in fact, it is currently not enforced.
The numbers (10 in applied mathematics, 50 total) are somewhat
arbitrary, although 10, the minimum for a small, full society,
seems justified by consistency with the rule for full members.
#2. Article 7.1. Because of difficulties with, and objections to,
amending by-laws by e-mail, it is proposed to amend this article
to clarify the rules for amendments by mail.
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2) 2013 ICIAM Board Meeting, 11 May 2013,
and Workshop, 10 May 2013. Second Announcement
All member societies are expected to send representatives to the Board
meeting. Details on local arrangements and a one-day workshop before
the meeting are given below. Thanks to the hospitality of CSIAM and
NCMIS, representatives will not have to pay for their local accommodation.
Representatives are requested to notify Professor Xiao-Shan Gao of their
travel plans and interest in speaking at the workshop; please also inform
ICIAM Secretary, Alistair Fitt (afitt [at] brookes.ac.uk (afitt[at]brookes[dot]ac[dot]uk)) of your plans to
attend the Board meeting.
The 2013 ICIAM board meeting will be held on 11 May 2013 at
"Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research, Peking University
(http://www.bicmr.org/)".
A detailed agenda will be available approximately one month before the meeting.
The following important items will be part of the agenda:
- Final selection of a site for ICIAM 2019
- Request for approval of invited speakers list for ICIAM 2015
- Changes in the by-laws (circulated in the previous item)
- Election of the ICIAM President-Elect
* Workshop Arrangements
A one day workshop titled:
Workshop on Industrial and Applied Mathematics
will be held on 10 May 2013, the day before the board meeting, in the
"Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy
of Sciences (http://english.amss.cas.cn/)".
The purpose of the workshop is to exchange ideas and views on recent
results and organizations of industrial and applied mathematics in
different countries. About 12 speakers can be arranged. Participants
of the board meeting are welcome to give talks in this workshop.
Speakers will be selected based on "first come, first served" principle.
If you want to give a talk, please send a title and abstract of your talk
to Professor Xiao-Shan Gao (xgao [at] mmrc.iss.ac.cn (xgao[at]mmrc[dot]iss[dot]ac[dot]cn)) before the end of
March.
* Visa Application
Most foreign travellers to China are required to hold a visa. The
local organizers will send an invitation letter to all participants of
the board meeting for the purpose of applying a visa.
Please send your postal address and email address to Professor
Xiao-Shan Gao (xgao [at] mmrc.iss.ac.cn (xgao[at]mmrc[dot]iss[dot]ac[dot]cn)) at your earliest convenience.
If you have special requirements for the invitation letter, please let
the local organizers know.
* Accommodation and local expenses
All participants will stay in the Jade Palace Hotel. Participants
just need to tell us the arrival and departure dates so we can help
to make the reservation.
Participants are expected to pay their own travel expenses. Local
expenses including accommodation, meals, and local travel during
the event will be covered by CSIAM and NCMIS
(http://english.ncmis.cas.cn/).
Jade Palace Hotel
76 Zhichun Road,
Beijing 10086, China
Phone: +86 10 6262 8888
http://www.jadepalace.com.cn/en/index.html
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3) Call for Nominations for ICIAM Prizes
Please publish the following Call in the newsletters, websites, etc.
of your societies (a Word Version is available and this call is now
published on the ICIAM website):
Call for nominations for ICIAM Prizes for 2015
The ICIAM Prize Committee for 2015 calls for nominations for the five ICIAM Prizes to be awarded in 2015. Each ICIAM Prize has its own special character, but each one is truly international in character. Nominations are therefore welcomed from every part of the world. A nomination should take into account the specifications for a particular prize (see /council/PrizeDescriptions.pdf), and should contain the following information:
• Full name and address of person nominated;
• Web home page if any;
• Name of particular ICIAM Prize;
• Proposed citation (concise statement about the outstanding contribution in fewer than 250 words);
• Justification for nomination (cite nominator's reason for considering candidate to be deserving, including explanations of the scientific and practical influence of the candidate's work and publications);
• CV of the nominee;
• Name and contact details of the proposer.
The deadline for nominations is 31 October 2013.
Nominations should be sent to the President of ICIAM, Barbara Keyfitz, preferably in electronic form. Nominations will be acknowledged.
ICIAM Prize committee:
Committee chair: Barbara Keyfitz
Donatella Marini (chair of Collatz Prize Subcommittee)
Felix Otto (chair of Lagrange Prize Subcommittee)
Pam Cook (chair of Maxwell Prize Subcommittee)
Takashi Kako (chair of Pioneer Prize Subcommittee)
Philippe Ciarlet (chair of Su Buchin Prize Subcommittee)
ICIAM, the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics,
is the world organization for applied mathematics and computational science.
Its members are mathematical sciences societies based in more than 20 countries.
For more information, see the Council's web page at /.
Barbara Lee Keyfitz
President of ICIAM
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4) Call for nominations for ICIAM President
A new President-Elect will be elected at the Board meeting in Beijing.
The relevant sections of the by-laws are appended below. We will
follow the procedures established four years ago:
• Nominations may be made by any member society.
• When a nomination is received the president will
write to ask the nominee whether the nominee is willing to
serve if elected and whether she/he wishes to supply a
one-page "summary case" for her/his nomination. Nominations
and materials which have been received by the secretary,
Alistair Fitt, by 15th April, will be circulated by the secretary.
• According to the by-laws, nominations can also be made
on the floor at the board meeting. If this is done at the
board meeting a statement by the nominee that she/he is
willing to serve if elected is still needed.
By-laws:
4.2 The Officers are elected by the Board. In particular, the
President-Elect should be elected by a secret ballot by a majority of votes.
4.3 Year of election and terms in office
4.3.1 President-Elect, President and Past-President
The President-Elect is elected for a two-year term on years congruent to
1 mod 4. The President-elect takes over as President and the President
becomes Past-President (for two years) in years congruent to 3 mod 4.
4.3.3 Beginning of a term
Every term starts on 1st October of the election year.
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5) Call for applications for ICIAM Fellowships
Following the decision of the Board in 2012 in Kyoto, this call has now
been made "permanent". It can be found at
/DCS/
The next deadline is 31 March.
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6) Request for articles for the ICIAM Newsletter
Following the successful launch of the Newsletter in January, current
plans call for quarterly issues. The deadline for articles, comments
and news items for the April issue is 31 March.
The newsletter is eager to have more reporters, and members are welcome
to continue to nominate reporters. Future issues will have additional
features, such as a "Letters to the Editor" column. Contributions are
welcome, and will be acknowledged by the officers, who are acting as an
editorial board, pending Board approval of a standing editorial board.
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7) Request to check and update information
Please check the information we have, at
/sociciam/soclist.html
(log-in instructions are below) and send any corrections to the president
(bkeyfitz [at] math.ohio-state.edu (bkeyfitz[at]math[dot]ohio-state[dot]edu)) or secretary (afitt [at] brookes.ac.uk (afitt[at]brookes[dot]ac[dot]uk)).
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8) Access to the internal website
/
is as follows.
Go to the restricted area, via the link in the side-bar.
You can access the restricted area using:
log-in: iciam-representative
password: zurich
Columbus, 6 March 2013 Barbara Lee Keyfitz