Bylaws for ARITH [PDF]

the IEEE Symposium on Computer Arithmetic

Approved July 18th, 2018

Bylaw 1 (Composition and Duties of the Steering Committee)

The Steering Committee of the IEEE Symposia on Computer Arithmetic consists of previous Program Chairs.

a.
The Steering Committee elects a board consisting of three members, denoted the SC-Board as follows. The SC-Board selects one of its members as chair who serves for one year. Each year one member is replaced on a rotational basis.

New SC-Board members are proposed by Steering Committee members and appointed by the Steering Committee. Nominations for the new SC-Board members have to be privately sent to the current SC-Board not later than one month before the first day of the Symposium. Any SC Member can nominate; self nominations are not accepted. Nominees should be active members of the SC and should have served in the SC for a period at least of 3 years. The SC-Board, on the basis of the nominations received, checks the eligibility/viability of the nominees and prepares a slate where it can add, if necessary, other names meeting the eligibility requirements. The slate is presented and voted at the SC Meeting at the symposium. No names can be added from the floor to the slate at that time. The nominee receiving the largest number of votes is appointed provided that it has received at least one third of the cast votes. In case of a tie, the nominee with greatest seniority in the SC is appointed; in case of further tie, the youngest in age is appointed. In case no nomination is received or the voting does not select any candidate, the SC-Board in full, is prolonged by one more year.

b.
The SC-Board is responsible for conducting the business of the Steering Committee, including organizing formal ballots on controversial points or otherwise as needed.

A ballot can be requested by any Steering Committee member, and the result of the vote is binding. In the case of a tie, the SC-Board random selects a ballot that breaks the tie.

c.
The SC-Board calls a Steering Committee Meeting during the ARITH YYYY (YYYY=4-digit year) symposium and provides minutes of the meeting after the meeting.

d.
The Steering Committee reviews its membership during the Steering Committee meeting at the symposium. Members who have not been present at the last three symposia are automatically transferred to emeritus status.

e.
The Steering Committee is responsible for processing requests to hold ARITH YYYY+2 and for selecting one site proposal by vote at the ARITH YYYY Steering Committee Meeting.

Proposals, prepared by a Main Proposer, must be submitted electronically to the SC-Board by a set deadline and presented at the Steering Committee meeting during the ARITH YYYY Symposium.

The Main Proposer of the selected venue is appointed as General Chair if already a Steering Committee member. If not, the Steering Committee in consultation with the Main Proposer will appoint the General Chair.

f.
The Steering Committee appoints distinct persons as the General Chair and two Program Committee Chairs for ARITH YYYY+2. Additional officers such as Financial Chair, Publicity Chair, Registration Chair, Proceedings Editor, etc., are appointed at the discretion of the General Chair.

The General Chair can ask for a co-Chair to help for some tasks. The co-Chair is appointed by the Steering Committee, if agreed.

g.
The two Program Committee Chairs are selected as follows. Nominations have to be privately sent to the SC-Board by the deadline set by the SC-Board. Any SC Member can nominate one or more Program Committee Chair candidates. The SC-Board, on the basis of the nominations received, checks the suitability for the role of the nominees (e.g.: 3-5 years of active participation in the Program Committee, excellent performances as reviewer in the Community) and prepares a slate where it can add, if necessary, other names meeting the suitability requirements. The slate is presented and voted at the SC Meeting at the symposium, or presented by e-mail and voted electronically. No names can be added from the floor to the slate at that time. The two nominees receiving the largest number of votes are appointed. In case of tie, a second vote is taken with only the nominees who tied. In case of further tie, the SC-Board random selects a ballot that breaks the tie.

Bylaw 2 (ARITH Symposium Officers)

a.
The General Chair and the other Symposium Officers are responsible to complete in a timely manner a number of tasks, including, preparing and publicizing the Call for Papers, by setting the necessary deadlines, raising external funds for the symposium, negotiating and signing a contract with the local facility, preparing and publicizing the advance and the final program, and registration.
The Program Chairs are responsible for the review of the submitted papers and the selection of the ones for the Symposium program.

In addition, the Program Chairs are responsible for requesting a special section/issue of the IEEE Transactions on Computers, or similar top level journal, for submitting extended versions of papers accepted at the Symposium. The Program Chairs, in consultation with the General Chair and the SC-board, will prepare the proposal of the special section to have it timely submitted to the Editor-in-Chief of the selected journal.

b.
The Program Chairs appoint a Program Committee (PC). The size of the Program Committee must be proportional to the expected number of submissions to ensure a smooth review process without overloading PC members. If there is an exceptionally large number of submissions, additional members can be added to the Program Committee after the submission deadline.

The Program Chairs are encouraged to have a significant amount of new members in the Program Committee (around one third), although this is not mandatory.
After the meeting, the Program Chairs report to the SC-board on the performance of the PC members during the review process. The SC-Board forwards the part of that information which is relevant to the next Program Chairs.

c.
The Program Chairs, in consultation with the Program Committee and the General Chair, may invite plenary speakers and tutorial lecturers.

d. If the General Chair or a Program Chair becomes incapable of working on a meeting, the SC-Board substitutes new Chairs and informs the Steering Committee by email.

Bylaw 3 (Format of the Symposium)

a.
All changes to the customary ARITH format and procedures, which are outlined below, must be approved by the Steering Committee and the General Chair.

b.
ARITH is an annual, two-and-a-half day symposium to be held in general during the summer. The symposium location alternates between North American countries (even years) and countries outside North America (odd years).

ARITH subject matter covers computer arithmetic and number representations, including both theoretical and implementation issues. A specific list of topics is proposed by the Program Chairs, to be approved by the SC-board.

ARITH solicits, reviews, and publishes papers describing original research. The papers are submitted by the deadline and reviewed by the Program Committee. The Program Chairs should accept submissions through some conference organization tool (e.g., Easychair).

The listing of PC members in the symposium announcement is intended to inform potential authors that submissions are to be reviewed by researchers competent on the topic of a submission.

c.
Persons serving as Program Chairs or General Chairs cannot submit papers on which they are authors or co-authors.

d.
Conflicts-of-Interest (CoIs) are normally handled by the conference organization tool. If exceptions occur, it is the responsibility of the Program Chairs to handle the CoI in the proper manner.

e.
The Program Chairs solicit reviews of anonymously submitted papers from at least three specialists among the Program Committee members for expert evaluation.

A PC member is personally responsible for the quality of a review requested by the Program Chairs: hence in principle the review has to be made by that member. In exceptional cases the review may be provided by an external reviewer, provided that the PC member will guarantee the reviewer's competence on the topic.

Decisions on the acceptance of submissions based on the reviews are made by the Program Committee at a meeting (physical or internet based). Reviews consisting solely of non-technical comments cannot be used in making decisions and new reviews need to be obtained.

Accepted papers are published in Proceedings that are available (in print or in electronic format) at the symposium.

f.
The program may include invited plenary speakers, who may publish their presentations as papers in the Proceedings. The Symposium's final program may be expanded by including special sessions, tutorials, workshops, user meetings, and other events.

During the symposium there may be exhibits of commercial products and demonstrations of new software and hardware.

g.
One Best Paper Award is given during the symposium.

Based on paper reviews, the Program Chairs identify three best paper candidates. PC members vote for the best paper among the three candidates before the symposium.

Bylaw 4 (Web Sites)

a.
The Steering Committee holds the right to use the domain www.arithsymposium.org registered at the Technical University of Denmark.

b.
The SC-Board delegates to a Web Editorial Board (WEB) the maintenance of a web-site at URL http://www.arithsymposium.org/.
Members of the WEB are volunteers. Any member of the ARITH community can contribute to the web-site content.

The physical location of the server hosting the web-site is decided by the SC-board and the WEB.

The web-site must contain:

c.
The organizers of each ARITH edition must set up a symposium specific web-site identified by the URL http://arithYYYY.arithsymposium.org/ (where YYYY is the year).

The ARITH YYYY Web Chair is appointed by the General Chair. After the symposium, the Web Chair must pass to the WEB the relevant data (Program, Committees, etc.) to be incorporated in the http://www.arithsymposium.org/ web-site.

Bylaw 5 (Transition and Amendments)

These Bylaws can be amended by ballot at the ARITH Steering Committee meeting during the symposium. Any amendment needs two thirds (2/3) of the votes to be approved.

Proposals for amendments may be submitted to the SC-Board at any time, but no later than at the beginning of the symposium.

The Steering Committee begins work at ARITH-23 (2016).

Transition from Current Status takes place at ARITH-25 (2018).

 

 

 

 

 

This revision of the Bylaws, identified as version 2.1 (v2.r1), was approved on July 18, 2018, and revised to reflect the changes in the acronym on June 20, 2019.