SIGAPP Annual Report

July 2002 - June 2003

Submitted by: Gary B. Lamont, Outgoing Chair and Barrett R. Bryant, Incoming Chair

The SIGAPP mission is to further the interests of the computing professionals engaged in the development of new computing applications and applications areas and the transfer of computing technology to new problem domains.

"Status of SIGAPP and SAC relationship"

In 2000, the ACM SGB EC decided that SIGAPP should be conference-only SIG based upon their view that SIGAPP was not recruiting enough new volunteers, SIGAPP membership was decreasing, and participation in officer voting was quite small. However, SIGAPP membership has decreased very little hovering over 200 (currently at 250) thanks to "free" memberships at SAC. The SIGAPP Newsletter, the Applied Computing Review (ACR), was stopped because of this SGB EC decision. ACR was published three times a year providing contemporary papers and updates emphasizing the SIGAPP mission. One yearly issue included extended versions of the best SAC papers. ACR back issues are still available online or in printed format from ACM. One of the major future goals of SIGAPP is to reinstate the ACR. Also, SAC continues to be an important and very successful ACM symposium as sponsored by SIGAPP.

The board has requested us to develop a more strategic sense of what SIGAPP is, and what it can uniquely provide to its members. How it will fit with other ACM SIGs and other extant professional organizations and societies is also crucial. We plan to continue to address these issues with the SGB with the hope that SIGAPP will once again be a vital "full service" SIG. SIGAPP's mission is stated above with the SIGAPP Opportunity and Areas of Special Interest attached; together they reflect such a strategic focus. We continue to attempt to associate appropriate ACM SIGs with each SAC Track.

As of July 2003, there will be the following new set of SIGAPP officers:

Chair - Barrett R. Bryant, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Vice Chair - Ernesto Damiani, DTI - Universit di Milano, Italy
Secretary - Juan Llorens, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Treasurer - Ronaldo P. Menezes, Florida Institute of Technology, USA
Web Master - Hisham Haddad, Kennesaw State University, USA
ACM Program Coordinator, Donna Baglio, ACM HQ

In the spirit of increasing volunteer participation in the SIG, only the WebMaster has previously held a SIGAPP officer position. To ease the transition, a SIGAPP/SAC Organizational Manual has been developed defining specific symposium procedures, detailing officer responsibilities, and communication interfaces to appropriate ACM individuals and ACM generic conference documentation. The draft is currently being finalized for use in SAC '04 management.

"SAC'03 in the Florida Sunshine"

SAC'03 was held in Melbourne, Florida, March 9-12, 2003, as sponsored by ACM SIGAPP and hosted by the Department of Computer Science at the Florida Institute of Technology. Thanks to a great organizing committee, it was a very successful symposium. Note that we employed a professional conference organizer which reflected an improved financial and registration process. Our annual SIGAPP membership meeting discussed the issues addressed above concerning future planning of SIGAPP activities. The number of SAC papers submitted was 525 in 21 tracks with 200 papers accepted based upon extensive Track reviews, for a 38% ratio, a ratio that has correctly been decreasing from previous years thanks to SAC program chairs and track chairs.

"SAC'04 in Cyprus"

SAC 2004 will be held in Nicosia, Cyprus, March 14 - 17, 2004. Sponsored by ACM SIGAPP and hosted by the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, Cyprus. The web site http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2004/ has further details such as symposium committee, track chairs, call for papers, hotel location, etc. Observe that submitted papers and proposed tutorials are due September 6th.

The SAC 2004 officers will be:

Symposium Chair - Hisham M. Haddad - Kennesaw State University
Symposium Vice Chair - George A. Papadopoulos - University of Cyprus
Program Chairs - A. Omicini - Univ. degli Studi di Bologna; R.Wainwright - Univ. of Tulsa
Publication Chair - Lorie M. Liebrock - New Mexico Inst. of Mining and Technology
Posters Chair - Mathew J. Palakal - Indiana University Purdue University
Tutorials Chair - Andreas Andreou - University of Cyprus
Treasurer and Registrar - Hisham M. Haddad - Kennesaw State University
Local Arrangement Chair - Constantinos Pattichis - University of Cyprus

As with the SIGAPP officers, almost everyone playing a major role in SAC 2004 has not served in such a capacity previously.

"SAC'05 Planning"

SAC 2005 is being planned for Santa Fe, New Mexico. It will be the 20th SAC and appropriately returns to the central United States where the conference began (in the neighboring state of Oklahoma).

"SIGAPP/SAC Volunteers"

The SIGAPP and SAC officers are continually seeking additional volunteers for the SIGAPP & SAC Steering Committees and have been somewhat successful in placing new people in key organizational roles, as has been pointed out above.

"Thanks to all from the Past-Chair"

Being the SAC Chair for the past three years and the SIGAPP Chair for the past four years, I accept the responsibility for our problems and say thanks to all for our many successes. With the support of the above individuals as well as others, SIGAPP and SAC continue to excellently serve our interdisciplinary community of computer scientists, computer engineers, and other computing professionals.

Professor Gary B. Lamont
Outgoing Chair of SIGAPP & SAC
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Graduate School of Engineering and Management
Air Force Institute of Technology
Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, OH 45433
[email protected]

"A Note from the New Chair"

SIGAPP's and SAC's strength and uniqueness among ACM SIGs continues to be the opportunity for scientific diversity and crosscutting multiple disciplines within the ACM community. The new officers look forward to working with the ACM SGB to further develop the SIG by increasing membership and providing those members with services beyond our annual conference, such as the Applied Computing Review newsletter. We will also be exploring new areas of applied computing such as bioinformatics, which has been represented by a successful track at SAC since 2001.

Barrett R. Bryant
Incoming Chair of SIGAPP
Professor of Computer and Information Sciences
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, AL 35294-1170
[email protected]