ThermoSense Cookbook

This text has been developed for the purpose of detailing the duties of the Steering Committee, Conference and Session Chairs, pertaining to Thermosense conferences.  It is an attempt to clarify the responsibilities of those associated with the Thermosense conference.  The information contained in this booklet is the result of suggestions made over the years and is updated at least once a year.

This is the fourth edition of the “Thermosense Cookbook”.  Comments, changes and additions are strongly encouraged from the Steering Committee and Working Group.  Any comments you may have should be directed to Ralph Dinwiddie.  With your help, this will grow to become an invaluable tool for planning, and conducting future Thermosense conferences.

WORKING GROUP

STEERING COMMITTEE

CONFERENCE CHAIR

SESSION CHAIRS

AUTHORS

COMMUNICATIONS

DEADLINES

AWARD CRITERIA

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

WORKING GROUP

The working group is the main lifeblood of Thermosense.  Without it, we do not exist, and it is written so in the bylaws.  The working group meets prior to the start of the conference sessions, and is an informal gathering of members and nonmembers.

The Working Group officers consists of a Chair, vice Chair, and Secretary. Although these are elected positions, they are often filled by volunteers.  It is customary for the Vice Chair to move into the Chairs position the following year.  The duties of the Chair include running the Working Group meeting, and reporting any information back to SPIE and the Steering Committee.

Membership is encouraged as it supports SPIE, which sponsors the conference.  Membership entitles you to:

• OE Reports, SPIE’s newspaper

• Notification of SPIE activities related to the field of Thermosense

• Discounts at SPIE meetings, short courses, and publications

• Access to electronic files related to the groups’ interest area

Ideas generated during the working group meeting are taken to the steering committee.  This communication is usually effective as members of the steering committee often attend, and are the vocal strength, of the working group meeting.

Issues and topics covered at the working group meeting include:

• The Future of Thermosense

• Papers of Interest

• Session Topics

• Tutorials and Workshops

• Current Topics

It has been mentioned that there are too many topics for the Working Group to cover in the time period allotted.  The Working Group Chair should provide an agenda for the meeting, and adhere to it, allowing time at the end for current topics and other discussions.

Current topics can be any current issue affecting the field of infrared thermography, such as standards, certification, training, professionalism and safety.

The meeting needs to have an agenda, which must be followed.  The Working Group Chair should offer the meeting agenda to members of the Working Group and Steering Committee for comment and input.  Members of the Working Group and Steering Committee should be willing to offer comment and input.  The agenda should be presented at the meeting for all to see (overhead, easel).  It is the responsibility of the Chair should keep the meeting to the agenda.  More informal debate can follow at the close of the meeting, and throughout the remainder of the conference.

STEERING COMMITTEE

Members of steering committee should chair a session, present a paper, or tutorial or otherwise contribute every year.  The contribution made by manufacturers, by exhibiting their equipment at the conference, is recognized.  Other duties include soliciting papers for Thermosense and participation in the Working Group.

Members of the Steering Committee should be able to attend the annual meeting, held at the Thermosense conference.  If not, they should maintain an active voice by participating in one of the following ways:

·         Teach a Tutorial

·         Chair a Session

·         Recruit Papers

·         Author & Present a Paper

·         Exhibit Products at Co nference

·         Provide Input on Thermosense Decisions

As a member of the Steering Committee, it is your responsibility to respond to announcements regarding changes in the program and meeting dates.

CONFERENCE CHAIR

The responsibilities of the conference chair/s include maintaining communication during the year prior to the conference and overseeing the conference.

Prior to the conference:

·         Maintain an accurate list of steering committee members

·         Know who the session chairs are and how best to reach them (mail, phone, fax, e-mail, etc.)

·         Remind session chairs of deadlines

·         Remind session chairs of their responsibilities

·         Relay editorial changes to SPIE on the call for papers, advanced program and program

·         Keep informed of any and all papers, authors, titles from the session chairs

·         Provide SPIE with updated information regarding paper titles, and their orders

·         Maintain communication with SPIE (They are quite pleasant and have always been cooperative.)

·         Provide each session chair with copy of papers as they arrive. (The author’s are supposed to send copies to the session chairs, but this does not always happen.  Communication is essential!

Prior to the start of the conference, the conference chair should arrange a mini meeting of session chairs and steering committee members to review any last minute changes.  Try to do this, with SPIE’s help, if possible.  Perhaps this could be before the Working Group meeting, during, or after it.

At the conference:

·         The conference chair oversees the session chairs

·         Introduce session chairs at the conference

·         Start and end conference, and each session

·         Make sure conference stays on schedule

·         Make announcements throughout the conference

·         Present any awards

SESSION CHAIRS

Most of the session chairs work is performed prior to the conference.  Session chairs are responsible for contacting potential authors and inviting them to write and present a paper.  While doing this, try to make it sound worth their while.  Be careful not to over embellish the invitation, so it is taken as cost free offer, or a paid solicitation to participate.  Make sure your authors are aware of the fact they will have to pay to attend the conference, even though they are speaking.

Reinforce the contacts that can be made, and the information to be gained through networking with other thermographers in similar fields of applications.

Another good aspect to consider is the professional recognition one acquires by participating in such a conference.  Along with this is the opportunity to be published.  For some authors this may not be a drawing card.  For other authors, it might just be the incentive they need to persuade their superiors to approve their participation in Thermosense.

Session Chair Responsibilities:                                       

  ·  Keep in constant contact with authors

  ·  Make sure abstracts come in on time

  ·  Get copies of abstracts

  ·  Get authors’ biographies

  ·  Review biographies prior to the conference

  ·  Make sure authors’ are aware of the manuscript deadline date

In regards to the advanced program, as titles come in, please determine the order the papers should be presented in.  This means grouping, or not grouping, papers together based on their content.  An example of this would be to put papers dealing with roof inspections together at the beginning of the building and infrastructure session. With aerial district heating papers together at the end.

When soliciting papers, make sure your prospective authors are fully aware of the “Rules of Thermosense”. The rules include:

1)      Presentations must be noncommercial in nature. This means absolutely NO ADVERTISING!  An author can boast as much as they want about the development of a specific application, but they must NOT turn the presentation into an “INFOMERCIAL”.

2)      Presentations must be in English.  Please remind your foreign speakers, the presentations must be in English.  Try to keep in close enough contact with foreign contributions to offer suggestions for presentations.  If necessary, find someone who can present the paper for them.

3)      Presentations must be 15-20 minutes in length.  Remind the speakers to leave a few extra minutes for questions.  Check in with audio/visual desk as soon as possible after arrival.

4)      Prior to the conference, go over your session.  If you have a co-chair, communicate with each other to resolve any problems or issues, and determine introductions. Make sure you have the authors’ biographies.  Contact the authors to confirm their presentation and thank them for their participation.  Ask them when they are arriving, and arrange to meet them before your session.  Ask them if they have any special needs you can assist them with.  Remind them to check in at the Speaker’s desk as soon as they arrive.  Gone are the days of the speakers’ breakfasts.  Session chairs should try to organize their own mini speakers gathering, the morning of their session.  This could be conducted at a specified area near the coffee setup.

5)      During the conference, it is the session chairs’ responsibility to introduce the speakers for that session.  Should the session have more than one chair, the co-chairs must agree upon how the speakers will be introduced.  One of the prime responsibilities the session chairs have prior to making the introductions is to obtain the speakers’ biography.  If this has not been attended to prior to the conference, the session chair(s) must make sure they contact their speakers for a brief biography so they may be introduced properly. (GET THEIR BIOS!)

6)      Keep your session on schedule!  This means informing your speakers of their time limits.  Sometimes we are lucky enough to have some crude timing device.  USE IT!  It will sound an alarm, and hopefully provide a visual signal for the speaker regarding time remaining.

AUTHORS

Submit an abstract for Thermosense and be prepared to write a noncommercial paper, in English, about a particular application regarding thermal sensing and/or imaging diagnostic applications.

Papers should be between 5 and 12 pages (check the author’s kit) and noncommercial in nature.  NO ADVERTISING!  Presentations must be in English and must be about 15 minutes in length, allowing 5 minutes for questions and answers.

Very often, when a topic at a session evokes extended enthusiasm, an evening workshop will be held to explore the issue further.  This lets the next speaker start on time and ensures the opportunity to discuss a subject in greater detail, in a less formal setting

COMMUNICATIONS

Over the years, technology has brought us wondrous methods of communication.  Unfortunately, we are not all speeding down the information highway in the same lane.  Some of us are cruising along in the left lane, while others are fighting merging traffic in the slower, right lanes.  Global communication is here with the Internet.

The fax machine is a great way to get ideas across instantly.  However, not all of us have fax full capabilities.  Some don’t give out their fax number, and some turn off their fax machines during certain hours to avoid “nuisance faxes”.  And who can blame them?  And what if the person you are trying to reach is out of town?  This is often the case with many thermographic consultants.

Then there’s the good old telephone, a solid invention, with more than a hundred years of field-testing.  This works quite well too, unless your messages are unreturned.  Or, you end up playing “phone tag” with each other’s answering machines.

What’s required is a happy blending of the most accepted means of communications.  Hopefully, the development of this “IR Cookbook” will aid in determining what communication is needed when.  Perhaps when all participating members of the Thermosense steering committee understand the basics, there will be less confusion.  Over the years, it has presented its difficulties.  Steering committee members change, as do operating procedures.  All of this is in the ever-changing arena of current trends in thermography

DEADLINES

Abstracts are usually due in mid to late September prior to the April conference.  Manuscripts are due four months following the abstracts. This date is not flexible.  Thermosense prides itself on having the proceedings at the conference, and we do not wish to jeopardize this tradition.  Authors’ names and titles for the advance program are due four weeks after the abstract due date.  It is also at this time the copy for the “Call for Papers” for the following Thermosense conference is due.  That means, by the end of September, you must have a name for the conference chair for the Thermosense conference, which will be held 18 months from September.

Notification of the speakers * Speakers do not know if their paper has been accepted until they receive the author’s kit.  This usually arrives about one month before the manuscript due date.  Someone, with excellent notes, who has pre-written their paper, may be able to find the time to fulfill the obligations of SPIE for publication.  However, with this limited time, and it being over the year end Holidays, is inconvenient.  There should be a way for SPIE to notify the authors as soon as the Session Chairs have accepted the paper.

April – Conference chair for next year leads Steering Committee meeting at Thermosense conference.  Topics to be discussed include successes and failures at current Thermosense.  Session chairs for the following Thermosense are determined.

June – Contact session chairs regarding Thermosense, papers, titles, authors, SPIE re: what’s happening?

August – Start looking for abstracts to appear.  It is a good idea at this time to remind the session chairs of their jobs, and ask them point blank if they have done anything to round up papers.

September – By the end of September, SPIE should send out copies of received abstracts.  This is another time to remind session chairs about papers in their sessions.

October – Advanced program and following conference’s Call for Papers deadline.  Here is your last opportunity to contact people about paper titles, authors and abstracts.

December – Before the holidays kick in big time, it would be advisable to contact session chairs to remind them of their duties.  Session chairs should contact their authors to remind them of deadline dates, and the basic guidelines for writing and presentation.

January – This is the last chance to remind the session chairs of their responsibilities.  After this, there isn’t too much more you can do that will matter one way or the other.

Evaluation Process and Protocol for the Adronicus G. Kantsios Award

Papers will be judged according to the following criteria:

·         Relevance of the subject to the purposes of Thermosense (practical application, reduction to practice, etc…)

·         Well-defined statement of the problem, or the purpose of the paper

·         Good scientific methodology (controlled experiments, no unsupported conclusions)

·         Quality of writing and organization skills, diagrams and thermal images, if any

·         Ease with which the reader can understand the essence of the paper, even for a person not familiar with the subject.

The evaluation process will proceed as follows:

1.       Conference Chair receives copies of all papers before the publication deadline.  At the same time, or soon thereafter, Session Chairs receive copies of all papers in their sessions.

2.       Conference Chair notifies Session Chairs that they have a week to evaluate their papers and submit their selection.

3.       Upon receiving one selection from each Session Chair, Conference Chair mails a package containing copies of all the selections to each Session Chair.

Last Updated on 16 May 2000
By R. B. Dinwiddie