IVS GM2002 Logo

Second IVS General Meeting
February 4-7, 2002
Tsukuba, Japan

IVS Logo
   Overview and Keynote    Schedule    Important Dates    Program    mini-TOW    Analysis Workshop    Oral Presentations    Posters    Abstracts    Proceedings    Registration    Travel    Accommodations    Local Information    Invitations and Travel Support    Program Committee    Local Committee    Questions? Problems?    Pictures    Feedback


First Announcement, February 28, 2001
Second Announcement, September 21, 2001
Registration Open, November 5, 2001
Add registration list and hotel information, December 4, 2001
Add link to Analysis Workshop page and Question section, December 6, 2001
Add information about posters, December 14, 2001
Add draft program time schedule, January 7, 2002
Add draft program and instructions for proceedings, January 11, 2002
Add details to the Schedule, January 15, 2002
Final program and abstracts, January 18, 2002
Last message from LOC, January 29, 2002
Pictures from the meeting posted, February 11, 2002
Add a feedback form, February 21, 2002

Overview and Keynote     The IVS holds a technical meeting, called the General Meeting, every two years. The purpose of the meeting is to assemble representatives from all IVS components to share information, hear reports, and plan future activities. The meeting also provides a forum for interaction with other members of the VLBI and Earth science communities.

The keynote of the second GM will be prospectives for the future, in keeping with the re-organization of the IAG around the motivation of geodesy as "an old science with a dynamic future", and noting that providing reference frames for Earth system science that are consistent over decades on the highest accuracy level will provide a challenging role for IVS.

All IVS Associate Members and individuals who have interests in the various applications of VLBI in the fields of geodesy, Earth sciences, astronomy, and astrometry are encouraged to attend the meeting. The goal of the meeting is to provide an interesting and informative program for a wide cross section of IVS members, including station operators, program managers, and analysts. Non-IVS members are cordially invited to attend the meeting. The content of the meeting will be of interest to a broad spectrum of IVS members as well as to the wider VLBI and Earth science community.

The second General Meeting will be held at Tsukuba International Congress Center (Epochal Tsukuba) in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki, Japan.

Detailed information about the venue can be obtained at Epochal Tsukuba.

The meeting is being hosted by the IVS member organizations:

Supporting organizations are:

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Important Dates    

Please keep in mind these important dates related to the second General Meeting.

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Schedule     The table below lists events scheduled for the week of the meeting. The LOC will have someone available throughout the meeting week in room Epochal 301. Copy service will be available there.

Date Time Location Events
Sun Feb 3 09:00-17:00 Epochal 302 IVS Directing Board meeting
17:00-20:00 Epochal 102 Registration
18:00-20:00 Epochal 102 Ice-breaker reception
Mon Feb 4 09:00-17:00 in front of Epochal 202 Registration
10:00-18:00 Epochal 202 General Meeting sessions
18:30-21:00 Epochal 201 Poster session
Tue Feb 5 08:00-17:00 in front of Epochal 202 Registration
08:30-18:00 Epochal 202 General Meeting sessions
19:00-21:00 SANSUITEI restaurant Banquet
Wed Feb 6 08:00-12:00 in front of Epochal 202 Registration
08:30-12:30 Epochal 202 General Meeting sessions
14:00-18:00 Tsukuba VLBI Station Technical Operations Workshop (TOW)
Afternoon Epochal 202 Asia Pacific Telescope (APT) meeting.
Contact Phil Edwards for information and details.
Thu Feb 7 08:00-18:00 Tsukuba and Kashima
VLBI stations
Excursion
Fri Feb 8 08:30-17:00 Epochal 303 Third IVS Analysis Workshop

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Program     Poster and oral papers may be contributed for presentation at the General Meeting. Contributions are not restricted to IVS Associate Members but may be contributed by anyone attending the meeting. To submit a paper please follow the instructions for Abstracts.

The final detailed program schedule (Word format or ASCII format) is available for review. The abstract booklet is also available (Word format). Hard copies will be provided to particpants at the meeting.

Six sessions will be held during the meeting. Following is the list of sessions with their convenors and a brief description. Please contact any of the convenors if you have questions about which session would be most appropriate for your paper.

Session Title Convenors Description
1 VLBI: Precise and
Consistent for Decades
Wolfgang Schlueter,
Shigeru Matsuzaka
This session will invite welcome and keynote speakers. The second General Meeting will be oriented toward prospectives for the future, in keeping with the re-organization of the IAG around the motivation of geodesy as "an old science with a dynamic future", and noting that providing reference frames for Earth system science that are consistent over decades on the highest accuracy level will provide a challenging role for IVS.
2 Improving the Performance
and Products of IVS
Harald Schuh,
Calvin Klatt
The products of the IVS can be improved with respect to accuracy, timeliness and reliability, and measures to achieve these improvements shall be discussed. Suggested topics include operational improvements at network stations, correlators or analysis centers, extension of current observing programs, and innovative concepts for improved observations.
3 Network Stations,
Operation Centers,
Correlators
Ed Himwich,
Arno Mueskens
The Operation Centers coordinate the schedules used by the Network Stations. The Network Stations collect the raw VLBI data. The Correlators correlate the data to generate the observables used by the Analysis Centers. Suggested topics for this session include: status reports for Operations Centers and Correlators (due to the volume, Network Station status reports will generally be presented as posters but should be submitted to this session); station improvements; station problems; local surveys; scientific interest and goals for observing networks; new antennas; correlator problems; correlator improvements; correlator capacity and performance; feedback to the stations, operations centers, or correlators.
4 New Technology
Developments in VLBI
Yasuhiro Koyama,
Alan Whitney
New technology developments in VLBI systems enable continuing improvements and efficiencies in VLBI observations. This session welcomes contributions from all aspects of new VLBI technology, including data systems, e-VLBI, instrumental calibration and other critical VLBI technology components.
5 Data, Models,
and Software
Ruediger Haas,
Zinovy Malkin
IVS data are collected at the IVS Data Centers and analysed by the IVS Analysis Centers. In this session we call for contributions related to IVS Data Center activity, data flow, services for users, reliability and timeliness of data exchange between primary Data Centers. IVS Analysis Centers are invited to contribute papers related to their current activities, development and comparison of models and software used for the data analysis, and assessment of the errors and accuracy of the VLBI results. The current status and new developments for these parts of IVS activities shall be discussed.
6 Analysis and
Geodetic/
Geophysical/
Astrometric
Interpretation
Chopo Ma,
Seiji Manabe
The analysis of VLBI observations produces time series, long-term average positions and rates, and values of physical parameters. Suggested topics include the use of such VLBI results in modeling geophysical fluids from the atmosphere to the core, the motion of the Earth in space, refinement of the terrestrial and celestial reference frames, interpretation of the motions of specific sites and sources, astrophysical registration, tests of relativity, and other scientific uses of geodetic and astrometric VLBI data. Another area is the comparison, validation and combination of VLBI with results from other space geodetic techniques.

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Mini-TOW    

The mini-TOW will be organized by

This workshop is intended to provide an opportunity for station personnel attending the General Meeting to discuss issues and problems. The topics covered will be determined after registration is complete and will depend on the interests of those planning to attend. Topics might include use of phase-cal for diagnostics and/or tape recorder check-out and maintenance. A tutorial session on some aspects of station operation will probably be included. Please contact the organizers for more details or to make suggestions. Non-station personnel are welcome to sign up for the mini-TOW, but because the available room is small we may be forced to limit attendance.

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Analysis Workshop    

The third Analysis Workshop will be held on Friday of the week. Details will be announced later and posted on the Analysis Coordinator's web page.

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Oral Presentations     The approximate time schedule for each oral session is in the table below. The final detailed program schedule (Word format or ASCII format) is available for review. The abstract booklet is also available (Word format). Hard copies will be provided to particpants at the meeting.

Monday Feb 4 Tuesday Feb 5 Wednesday Feb 6
   0830 - 0900
0900 - 1000
Session 3 part 2
Session 4 part 1
0830 - 1000 Session 6 part 1
1000 - 1200 Session 1 1000 - 1030 break 1000 - 1030 break
   1030 - 1200 Session 4 part 2 1030 - 1200 Session 6 part 2
1200 - 1330 lunch 1200 - 1330 lunch 1200 - 1230 wrapup
1330 - 1530 Session 2 1330 - 1530 Session 5 part 1   
1530 - 1600 break 1530 - 1600 break   
1600 - 1800
1830 - 2100
Session 3 part 1
Poster Session
1600 - 1800 Session 5 part 2   

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Posters    

The poster room will be set up by the LOC on Monday morning. Authors will be able to put up their posters beginning at 12:00 on Monday and may leave them up until Wednesday at 17:00. The LOC will remove any posters that remain and take down the boards on Wednesday evening. The detailed program schedule (Word format or ASCII format) is available for review. The abstract booklet is also available (Word format). Hard copies will be provided to particpants at the meeting.

The poster room will be available for viewing posters and discussions as follows:

The poster room (Room 201) is adjacent to the meeting room (Room 202).

Each poster space will be 2.1 m (height) by 0.9 m (width).

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Abstracts     To submit your paper, please send the title and abstracts by using the abstract submission form before 24:00 UTC on November 15, 2001. The convenors and Program Committee will review all contributed paper submissions. Please note that we may not be able to accept all submissions due to the time and space limitations, and we may have to change whether a paper has an oral or poster presentation.

List papers sorted by:
List abstracts sorted by:

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Proceedings     The proceedings of the meeting will be published in a printed volume and on the web. Authors of invited papers, contributed oral papers, and contributed poster papers are requested to submit manuscripts for publication in the proceedings. Please refer to the detailed manuscript preparation and submission instructions that includes a template and a detailed example file. The deadline for submission of manuscripts will be February 22, 2002. Paper length will be limited to 5 pages for contributed papers and 10 pages for invited papers.

IVS component reports that are presented at the meeting will not be included in the proceedings because they will be published as part of the 2001 IVS Annual Report.

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Registration     Registration for the meeting and hotel reservations are being handled by Internationl Communications Specialists, Inc. via the on-line registration page. The deadline for early registration was January 10, 2002, now past. The deadline for on-line registration is January 31, 2002. After this date the registration web page will be closed and participants must register on-site at the meeting.


View registration for: GM (default) TOW AW
Sorted by: alphabetical (default) order registered country hotel

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Travel     Participants should plan to fly to Tokyo's Narita Airport and take a bus to Tsukuba. Buses leave Narita Airport for Tsukuba Center about every 2 hours. The bus ride takes 100 minutes and the fare is 2450 Yen. Refer to the bus timetable for exact times.

Please refer to the maps linked from the Narita web page to locate the bus stops at the airport. Click on "Buses" on the home page and then on "Diagram" for your terminal, or go directly to the links below.
    The bus for Tsukuba Center leaves from bus stop 15 in Terminal 1.
    The bus for Tsukuba Center leaves from bus stop 12 in Terminal 2.
You can find the terminal used by your airline in the Terminal Information table on the Narita Airport home page.

The final destination for the bus is Tsuchiura Station. Tsukuba Center is the third stop from the Narita Airport. Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba Epochal is in walking distance from Tsukuba Center Bus Stop. Please refer to the central city map and note that our hotel is the one named Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba Epochal (NOT Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba).

No reservation is necessary for the bus from Narita Airport to Tsukuba Center. However, a reservation is required for the return route. The return bus reservations will be handled by the Local Committee during the General Meeting.

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Accommodations     The Local Committee has booked a block of rooms at Okura Frontier Hotel Tsukuba Epochal, which is located right next to the meeting venue. Blocks of rooms at three other hotels have also been reserved. Information about each hotel is available on the hotel information page maintained by the LOC. To reserve a room you can click on the link on the hotel information page or go directly to the on-line registration page and click on "Click here for Hotel Reservation Form" (near the bottom of the page).

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Local Information     Some links to local information about the meeting city and local weather forecasts:

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Invitations and Travel Support     IVS will send a letter of invitation to attend the meeting as a means of support. If this would be of assistance for your travel plans, please contact the IVS Coordinating Center to request a letter.

A limited amount of funds for support of travel expenses for the General Meeting may be available through the generosity of the Local Committee. If you require assistance to attend the meeting, please inform Nancy Vandenberg, IVS Coordinating Center Director, and state your needs. Requests for travel assistance will be considered by the LOC and the Program Committee and you will be informed about their decisions by November 1, 2001.

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Program Committee     The members of the scientific/technical program committee for the second General Meeting are listed below. Please refer to the Program for the session convenors.

Please feel free to contact any member of the Program Committee with questions, comments, or suggestions.

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Local Committee     Last message from LOC, January 28

Members of the local organizing committee are:

Please feel free to contact any member of the Local Committee with questions, comments, or suggestions.

Questions? Problems?     If you have questions or problems please use these contacts:

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Pictures     Photographs taken during the meeting and events were posted on the IVS ftp site. Visit the picture page to view them. If you took pictures at the meeting and would like to share them, please send the web link for the pictures or the files themselves to the IVS Coordinating Center and your link can be added to the picture page.

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Feedback     We would like to receive feedback on your experiences at the meeting so that we can continue to improve the General Meetings. Please fill out the feedback form and submit it. Thank you for your evaluations.

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Return to IVS Home Page

Please address questions or comments to the IVS Coordinating Center
Last updated: February 13, 2002