UNION RADIO-SCIENTIFIQUE INTERNATIONALE Président: Prof. T.B.A. Senior Président sortant: Dr. P. Bauer Vice-Présidents: Prof. P.J.B. Clarricoats Prof H. Matsumoto Dr. J. Shapira Prof. M.A. Stuchly Secrétaire général: Prof. P. Lagasse	COMMISION G   Chairman: Prof. Bodo W. Reinisch University of Massachusetts Lowell 600 Suffolk St., Lowell, MA 01854 Tel.: (978) 934-4900 Fax: (978) 459-7915 E-mail:Bodo_Reinisch@uml.edu Vice Chairman: Dr. Phil Wilkinson E-mail: phil@ips.gov.au Former Chair: Dr. Kristian Schlegel E-mail: schlegel@linax2.dnet.gwdg.de
	23 July 1998

More than half the triennium has passed and it is time to prepare for the next General Assembly in Toronto, Canada. Before discussing the Toronto GA, I have summarized in part A the issues and activities involving Commission G. In the age of instant communication my account may be old news to most of you who are consulting the URSI homepage (www.intec.rug.ac.be/URSI/) or read the Radio Science Bulletin.
 

A. COMMISSION G ISSUES

(a)    Global morphology and modeling of the ionosphere;
(b)    Ionospheric space-time variations;
(c)    Development of tools and networks needed to measure ionospheric properties and trends;
(d)    Theory and practice of radio propagation via the ionosphere;
(e)    Application of ionospheric information to radio communications.
 
To achieve these objectives, the Commission cooperates with other URSI Commissions, corresponding bodies of the ICSU family (IUGG, IAU, COSPAR, SCOSTEP, etc) and other organizations (ITU, IEEE, etc.).

2a.  Commission G Working Groups

G.1. Ionosonde Network Advisory Group (INAG)
Chair : R. Conkright (U.S.A.)
Vice-Chairs : P.J. Wilkinson (Australia) and J.P. Jodogne (Belgium);

G.2. Studies of the Ionosphere Using Beacon Satellites
Chair : R. Leitinger (Austria)
Vice-Chairs : J.A. Klobuchar (USA) and P.V.S. Rama Rao (India);

G.3 Incoherent Scatter
Chair : A.P. van Eyken (Norway)
Vice-Chair : W. Swartz (USA);

G.4 Ionospheric Informatics
Chair : S.M. Radicella (Argentina)
Vice-Chair : R. Hanbaba (France).

2b.   Joint Working Groups

CGH.1. Wave and Turbulence Analysis
Co-Chair for Commission C : to be appointed
Co-Chair for Commission G : A.W. Wernik (Poland)
Co-Chair for Commission H : F. Lefeuvre (France)

EGH.1. EM Effects Associated with Seismic Activity
Co-Chair for Commission E : T. Yoshino (Japan)
Co-Chair for Commission G : O.A. Pokhotelov (Russia)
Co-Chair for Commission H : M. Parrot (France)

GF.1. Middle Atmosphere (this is the former AFG.1)
Co-Chair for Comm. G : J. Röttger (Sweden)
Co-Chair for Comm. F : C.H. Liu (China, SRS)
 
GFA.1. Ionosphere and Atmosphere Remote Sensing using Global Positioning Systems (GPS/GLONASS)
Co-Chair for Commission G : P. Høeg (Denmark)
Co-Chair for Commission F : F. Solheim (U.S.A.)
Co-Chair for Commission A : P. Banerjee (India)

GH.1. Active Experiments in Plasmas
Co-Chair for Commission G : Sa. Basu (USA.)
Co-Chair for Commission H : T. Leyser (Sweden)
 
GH.2. Computer Experiments, Simulation and Analysis of Wave Plasma Processes
Co-Chair for Commission G : H. Thiemann (Germany)
Co-Chair for Commission H : H. Matsumoto (Japan)

2c.   Inter-Union Working Groups

URSI/IAGA VLF/ELF Remote Sensing of the Ionospheric and Magnetosphere (VERSIM)
Co-Chair for IAGA Commission 2 and 3 : A.J. Smith (UK)
Co-Chair for URSI Commission G and H : M. Parrot (France)

URSI-COSPAR on International Reference Ionosphere
Chair : D. Bilitza (USA)
Vice Chair for COSPAR : K.I. Oyama (Japan)
Vice Chair for URSI: B.W. Reinisch (USA)

3.   Meetings Sponsored by Commission G
 

a.	Fifth Int. School/Symposium for Space Simulations (ISSS-5), Kyoto, Japan, 13-19 March 1997 (mode B)
b.	IRI/COST Workshop on New Developments in Ionospheric Telecommunication Systems Planning and Operations, Kuehlungsborn, Germany, 27-30 May 1997 (mode B)
c.	Bianisotropoics'97, Int. Conf./Workshop on Electromagnetics of Complex Media, Glasgow, UK, 5-7 June 1997 (mode A)
d.	BSS'97: Int. Beacon Satellite Symposium 1997, Sopron, Hungary, 30 June – 5 July 1997 (mode B)
e.	ISRP: Int. Symposium on Radiowave Propagation, Qiangdao, China, 12-16 August 1997 (mode A)
f.	MST8: Eighth Int. Workshop on Technical and Scientific Aspects of MST Radar, Bangalore, India, 15-20 December 1997 (mode B)
g.	C4.1 – COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Nagoya, Japan, 12-19 July 1998 (mode B)
h.	C1.2, C2.1, C2.3, C2.5, D0.3, D0.8 – COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Nagoya, Japan, 12-19 July 1998 (mode B)
i.	Vth Int. Suzdal URSI Symposium on "Modification of the Ionosphere by Powerful Radio Waves", Moscow, Russia, 26-29 August 1998 (mode B)
j.	Wireless & Telecommunication Symposium, Kuala, Lumpur, Malasia (mode A)
k.	Ionospheric Informatics Working Group Workshop/ Business Meeting, ITCP, Trieste, Italy, 22 June 1998

4.  Review of Radio Science

Prof. Christian Hanuise has accepted the load of serving as Book Editor for Commission G. He is working with three topic editors:

1. "Remote sensing of the Earth’s ionized environment – some recent developments", Dr. Alan Rodger (UK)
2. "Ionospheric tomography", Prof. Reinhart Leitinger (Austria)
3. "Ionospheric measurements and the global positioning system", Dr. Tony Mannucci (USA)

From personal experience I know how much work is involved in collecting and reviewing the topic material. I feel great gratitude toward the topic reviewers and Christian for performing this service for the URSI community.

5.  The Radio Science Bulletin

All URSI Correspondents receive the quarterly Bulletin. Urgent help is required to keep the Bulletin alive. I encourage you to submit papers of general interest for the URSI audience to the Commission G Associate Editor, Dr. Christos Haldoupis, haldoupis@talos.cc.uch.gr .

6.  URSI Fellows? 

A proposal has been circulated to generate a new status of elevated membership in the international URSI community, the "URSI Fellow". This position could possibly be compared with the IEEE Fellow. The intent is to create an URSI membership core of distinguished radio scientists that will help to publicize the importance and relevance of URSI. Appropriate election criteria and processes would have to be worked out. URSI President Tom Senior has appointed a three-person committee (D. Olver, H. Matsumoto, and me) to make recommendations to the Council for vote at Toronto. If you have an opinion on the subject, please share it with me soon, so that I can present a grass root opinion to the committee.
 

B. THE 26^th GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN TORONTO

The general Assembly will be held at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada, from 13 to 21 August 1999. Except of some Commission F meetings, all sessions will be held from Monday to Saturday, August 16-21. The opening ceremony will be on Sunday afternoon, August 15.

2.  Commission G Agenda
 
Commission G will have 17 half-day sessions, including 7 joint sessions with Commissions C, H, F, and J. The sessions and conveners are listed below. I will soon forward more detailed information to the conveners.

Commission G Sessions:
 

G1	Recent radar systems & scientific highlights in polar ionosphere & atmosphere research  J. Roettger (Germany) and W. Hocking (Canada)
G2	Ionospheric storms and substorms: radio observations and modeling  A. Shirochkov (Russia) and J. Hargreaves (UK)
G3	Low latitude ionosphere effects on systems and radio propagation  Su. Basu (USA), Sa. Basu (USA) and B.M. Reddy (India)
G4	Open session and latest results  K. Schlegel (Germany)
G5	Internet Session: Ionospheric data and models on the WWW  D. Bilitza (USA) and T. Araki (Japan)

Joint Sessions:
 

GC	Digital techniques in ionospheric radio propagation, control, and communication  D. M. Haines (USA) and P. Cannon (UK)
GF	Ionosphere and Troposphere parameters retrieved from GPS/GLONASS measurements.  P. Hoeg (Denmark) and J. P. V. Poiares-Baptista (Netherlands)
GH1	Electromagnetic coupling including seismic activity between the ground and the upper ionosphere & magnetosphere  S. Pulinets (Russia), M. Parrot (France) and O. Molchanov (Russia)
GH2	Lighning ionosphere interaction  U. Inan (USA) and D. Nunn (UK)
HG1	Theory & simulation of nonlinear kinetic processes in space plasmas  Y. Omura (Japan), M. Ashour-Abdalla (USA) and S. Ossakow (USA)
HG2	Radio-frequency sounders in space, new and old  G. James (Canada), R. Benson (USA) and B. Reinisch (USA)
HG3	Wave propagation: observation and data analysis  F. Lefeuvre (France), Y. Hashimoto (Japan) and K. Mahajan (India)
HG4	Comparative studies of space & laboratory plasmas  W. Gekelman (USA) and C. Hanuise (France)
HG5	Ionospheric modification with high power radio waves: coupling of plasma processes  T.B. Leyser (Sweden) and Sa. Basu (USA)
JCEG	Interference protection measures  R. Fisher (USA)
JFG	Tropospheric path delay correction  D. Woody (USA)

3.  URSI Awards

During each General Assembly URSI makes four awards. Nominations for the 1999 awards can be made by the international Commission Chairs and by the Member Committees. The deadline for nominations is 15 August 1998; the member committees have presumably already been informed directly by the URSI Secretariat in Ghent. I have nomination forms if anybody needs them.

4.  Student Competition

There will be an undergraduate student competition organized and sponsored by the Canadian National Committee, and it is limited to Canadian students.
 
5.  Awards for Young Scientists

The applications should be submitted through the URSI Member Committee. The deadline is 15 November 1998, for details see the URSI homepage or the recent Radio Science Bulletin.

6.  Quality of Presented Papers

At the end of every General Assembly the sole searching begins on how to prevent low quality papers from being presented. The selection process lies with the session conveners. Faced with the almost impossible task of judging the quality of a submitted paper from the short abstract, the convener generally selects all papers that fit under the session’s topic, and then divides the papers into aural and poster presentations. Under no circumstances can we allow to delegate "less qualified" papers to the poster session, they should be rejected. We should avoid having the same (first) author present more than one aural paper in the same session.

We could use the following process that might raise the average paper quality:

The session chair prepares a "Grade Sheet" at the end of the session giving a grade for every paper scheduled for presentation: 1=very good, 2=good, 3=needs improvement, 4=paper cancelled. Blank Grade Sheets with space for additional comments will be handed to the Session Chairs, who will complete them and turn them over to the Commission G Chair. Commission G will establish an archive on Paper Quality, sorted alphabetically using the lead author’s name.

Please let me know whether you think we should/should not implement this process.