TC18 "Discrete Geometry" Newsletter (February 2011, version 2)
==============================================================

Contents:
=========

1. DGCI 2011 in Nancy

2. Call for Proposals: DGCI 2012 in your Department ?

3. Report from WADGMM 2010

Appendix: DGCI Steering Committee Guidelines for DGCI Organization

=====================================================

1) DGCI 2011 in Nancy
------------------------

6-8 April 2011 Nancy, France
dgci2011@loria.fr
http://dgci2011.loria.fr/

    Dead-line for ealy registration: 21 February 2011;

    Some useful links:

     - Registration: http://registration.net-resa.com/site/498

     - Scientific Program: http://dgci2011.loria.fr/program.php

     - Accommodations: http://dgci2011.loria.fr/accommodation.php

    During the conference, a TC18 Meeting will be scheduled to
    exchange on the TC18 activities and its future. For example, TC
    chairs should  be changed by Dec. 2012 during
    the ICPR conference.  The TC18 meeting  is definitely a good place
    to discuss about that.


2) Call for Proposals: DGCI 2012 in your Department ?
-----------------------------------------------------

    In Nancy, the DGCI Steering  Committee will decide  and announce the
    location of the  next edition. Before  that, proposals should be set
    up and the  TC18 aims at  helping researchers  on  this step. Please
    have a look to  the following appendix written  by the DGCI Steering
    Committee for details. You can also find some information on the past
    editions here: http://www.tc18.org/events.html#dgci


3) First Workshop on Applications of Discrete Geometry and
     Mathematical Morphology (WADGMM 2010)
----------------------------------------------------------

On August 22, 2010, the first WADGMM workshop took place, prior to
ICPR2010 in Istanbul. The workshop was specifically aimed at promoting
interchange and collaboration between experts in discrete geometry and
mathematical morphology and potential users of these methods from other
fields of image analysis and pattern recognition. In particular, the
topics included:
- Efficient and theoretically proven representations for image
    segmentation etc
- Fast and accurate algorithms to extract topological and geometric
    features
- Connections between discrete
    geometry/mathematical morphology and other fields of pattern
    recognition (optimization, statistics, machine learning etc)
- Parallelization (cluster-based, GPU-based)
- Application to higher-dimensional data with emphasis on biomedical
    and remote sensing applications (3D, multi-temporal, multi-sensor,
    multi/hyper-spectral data)

The workshop attracted over 40 participants. There were four invited
talks, by David Coeurjolly (LIRIS - Lyon), Jacques-Oliver Lachaud
(LAMA-Chambery), Peer Stelldinger (University of Hamburg), and a
duo-talk by Laurent Najman (ESIEE Marne-la-Vallee) and Pierre Soille
(JRC Ispra). Authors contributed a 5-page manuscript describing
their work, and present the work in one of the two poster and demo
sessions. Out of 22 submissions, 18 contributions were selected for
presentation after peer-review. Proceedings are available for download
at http://mdigest.jrc.ec.europa.eu/wadgmm2010/procs.html . Extended
versions of selected WADGMM contributions will appear as a volume in the
Springer LNCS series.

The workshop was an enjoyable event, with interesting lectures and
poster presentations, and ample discussion.


Appendix: DGCI Steering Committee Guidelines for DGCI Organization
------------------------------------------------------------------

Guidelines for DGCI organization and on how to prepare a DGCI proposal

DGCI editions
=============

DGCI is a IAPR conference, so DGCI follows most of the IAPR rules.
Information on the past editions can be found on: http://www.tc18.org

Submission of proposals to organize a DGCI conference
=====================================================

The proposal must contain information on:

- the venue (city and conference hall), main access and transportation
   alternatives, and accommodation;

- the organizing University, laboratory/department, and research team;

- proposed dates (conference dates and deadlines);

- financial plan, including preliminary registration fees;

- program outline, scientific policy, suggestions for invited speakers;

- conference, program, and other chairs;

- any other important information.

Proposals should be sent to the Steering Committee members
(sc-dgci@tc18.org), at least two weeks before the upcoming DGCI. The
winning proposal for the next DGCI is selected by the Steering
Committee during the current one, and announced to the participants
before the end of the conference.

DGCI committees
===============

Steering committee: It is composed of a few permanent people completed
by the main organisers of several previous DGCIs (one for each) and by
the chair (or vice-chair) of TC18-IAPR. It is headed by a president
who is a main contact for the current organising committee.

Organising committees: It is already well defined during the proposal
to organise. It must prepare and send the call for paper, complete the
Program Committee and the Reviewing Committee (see Reviewing Process),
organise the reviewing process following DGCI rules, prepare the
Proceedings (see below), and finally the conference itself. These
steps are processed in relation with the Steering Committee.


Organisation
============

DGCI is a three day event. Usually, there is one invited lecturer per
day. The whole conference is organised as single track, with one or
two poster sessions. The poster sessions should be considered as
regular sessions, that is, they should not be held at the same time as
oral sessions.  The organisers should provide a meeting place for the
Steering Committee the day before the main social event of the
conference.  The organisers should also provide a meeting place and
time for the TC18 members.


Frequency
=========

DGCI is organised every 18 months. This frequency assures that the
scientific community can provide new results, while a PhD student can
attend two editions. It also provides some flexibility for the
organizers to find convenient dates.  Consequently next DGCI (the
17th) should be organised during autumn 2012.


Other conferences
=================

When deciding the DGCI dates, information about related conferences,
for example ISMM, IWCIA, must be taken into account. Information on
dates should be acquired by early exchanges between Steering Committee
or organizers.


Venue
=====

The current tradition is to hold every other DGCI in France and to
hold the others outside France. The Spring DGCIs have been held in
France and the Autumn ones outside. Of course, the field of interest
of IAPR-TC18 is worldwide, not limited to Europe.


Costs
=====

The main purpose of DGCI is to gather together researchers active in
the field. Therefore travelling expenses and hotel costs must not be
prohibitive, and cheap alternative for participants on a limited
budget should be available. This is really more important than finding
a touristically attractive spot! It is also important to have low
registration fees for PhD students.


Proceedings and Special issues
==============================

All accepted papers should be treated equally in the DGCI proceedings,
independently of if the presentation is oral or poster. The choice of
presentation mode depends on suitability, rather than on perceived
quality. Proceedings are traditionally published by Springer Verlag in
the LNCS series. Extended versions of papers selected by the Steering
Committee can be published in special issues of one or two journals,
proposed by the organisers (of course contacts must be taken several
months in advance).


Reviewing process
=================

For each main DGCI topic, one or two persons are selected to form a
Program Committee. Each DGCI submission is reviewed by at least two
(usually three) members of the Reviewing Committee. Program Committee
members will provide reviewing reports for papers dealing with their
associated topics in case of disagreement between
reviewers. Submissions from the Organizing Committee are handled by an
independent process. During the main steps of the reviewing process,
the Steering Committee is kept informed. Items for useful discussions
are: acceptance rate, session topics, etc.