Report on the 44th AAPPS Video Council Meeting Part II, December 15, 2020

AAPPS

Following the first part of the 44th Council Meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) on December 1, 2020, the second part of the 44th Council Meeting was held online from 10:00 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. KST (Korea Standard Time) on December 15, 2020, via Zoom session hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP). The participants were Jun'ichi Yokoyama (President), Hyoung Joon Choi (Vice-president), Nobuko Naka (Secretary), Keun-Young Kim (Treasurer), Gui-Lu Long (Ex Officio Member as Former President), and council members Jodie Bradby (Australian Institute of Physics (AIP)), Xiudong Sun (the Chinese Physical Society (CPS)), Tao Xiang (CPS), Mio Murao (the Physical Society of Japan (JPS)), Akira Yamada (the Japan Society of Applied Physics (JSAP)), Kurunathan Ratnavelu (Malaysian Institute of Physics), Rajadeep Singh Rawat (Institute of Physics Singapore), Fu-Jen Kao (the Physical Society located in Taipei), and Meng-Fan Luo (the Physical Society located in Taipei). The meeting was observed by Youngah Park (the Korean Physical Society (KPS)), Sang Pyo Kim (the Division of Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Gravitation (DACG)), Hiroyuki Nojiri (JPS), and Eunjeong Lee (AAPPS Liaison Officer). Council members Ruiqin Zhang (the Physical Society of Hong Kong), Woo-Sung Jung (KPS, APCTP), and Nguyen Quang Liem (Vietnam Physical Society) were absent.

(1) Secretary Naka reported the presence of 12 council members out of 17 members, and the quorum was fulfilled. [Note added: number of council members present during the meeting changed from 12 to 14].

(2) Agenda of the second part of the 44th Council Meeting was adopted as prepared by the president.

(3) Youngah Park, the chair of the Women-in-Physics Working Group of AAPPS (AAPPS-WIP) reported on recent activities. She first introduced the history of AAPPS-WIP and its current members. The working group was established after the approval of the 16th AAPPS council meeting held in Osaka, Japan, in April 2006. The first workshop on AAPPS-WIP was held at APPC10 in 2007, and the most recent workshop was held at APPC14 in Sarawak, Malaysia, in November, 2019. Seven talks were delivered in the AAPPS-WIP session of APPC14, and extended working group members had a luncheon meeting after the session. The working group recently made a AAPPS-WIP homepage for networking. Park acknowledged support from AAPPS and APCTP. Park explained that the International Conference on Women in Physics (ICWIP2020), which had originally been planned to take place in Melbourne, Australia, in July 2020, was postponed to July 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The conference will be held virtually, as it will take some time to make the new vaccines globally available. The best and easiest platform to be used is under exploration. The IOP Journal of Physics: D is planning to publish 2021 Women in Applied Physics Roadmap. From 18 to 20 pieces of short reviews on every aspect of applied physics will be contributed by all the female authors.

Furthermore, Park introduced the activities of Gender Equality Promotion Committee in JPS. The activities were initiated and conducted based on large-scale survey for the last twenty years by the Japan Inter-Society Liaison Association Committee for Promoting Equal Participation of Men and Women in Science and Engineering. A new award for young female scientists after the name of Prof. Fumiko Yonezawa was recently established in JPS. Summer camps for high-school girls, which were held for 15 years since 2005, are very successful. The camp was held online this year. The committee has been organizing symposiums and luncheon meetings in annual JPS meetings every year since 2002. They also provide daycare services for participants' children in JPS meetings since 2010.

Park also reported on the activities of the Women in Physics Committee in Korea. The number of women is approximately 20 % of the total number of the KPS members. The committee was established in the year 2002 in Busan, Korea. Since 2002, the committee organizes physics camps for high-school girls, site visits, and special sessions in KPS meetings. The surveys were conducted in 2005, 2010, and 2014, and the female ratio is found to be continuously improving. Nevertheless, there are still concerns, such as only 20 % of the female scholars have children and women feel more pressure for parenting than men. The standing of Korea in the index of gender inequality is 17th out of 152 countries. Yokoyama suggested to share the presentation slide to which Park agreed.

(4) Hiroyuki Nojiri explained the preparation status for the formation of the Division of Condensed Matter Physics (DCMP) as a regular division. A preparation for the foundation and a round table were held on December 4 and 5, 2020. He summarized the purpose, core areas, and core starting members for the division. The division will form an executive committee (EXCO), consisting of two representatives from each of the five founding societies and one or two representatives from each of the newly participating societies depending upon size. The division sets the status of an observer (not participating but having interest to receive information) by the bylaws. Prof. Je-Geum Park is the candidate division chair and Nojiri will be a vice chair. The selection of another vice chair and auditors are under progress. The membership will be given to regular members of Ph.Ds. or equivalent degree holders as well as to associate members including students. Registration will be completed on personal basis; Anyone belonging to the participating societies of AAPPS can join. The division will also accept exceptional cases, such as a researcher who lives in an area where no AAPPS society exists. The division defines the codes of conduct. Article 6 declares gender equality in composition and activities. Nojiri explained the schedule toward the foundation. The bylaws have been circulated for the formal signing by 30 founding members from the five societies. Finalization of the bylaws and nomination of the second vice chair will be completed by December 20, 2020. The founding documentation will be further circulated to call for participation to the division. The web site is presently under preparation and will be complete in March 2021. The first division meeting is planned to be held in November 2021 in Korea as a hybrid conference. Yokoyama stated that he was impressed by the sophisticated bylaws of DCMP. S.P. Kim commented that minimized simple bylaws are better, and to let the division work functionally is important. Yokoyama responded that respective divisions go its own way and amendment can be made at any time whenever it becomes necessary.

Tao Xiang asked whether the list includes full members. Nojiri answered that it is only a part of the list of 30 founding members. Choi asked how one can join the division. Nojiri responded that the division not only asked five founding societies to nominate six representatives, but also will call for initial members other than the representatives. S.P. Kim asked how EXCO members are nominated from each society. He suggested steps along the line of AAPPS philosophy, such as recommendation from the president of each society for an EXCO member. Akira Yamada asked about the membership fee, and Nojiri answered that membership is free. Nojiri expects that the division does not need a large financial source at the beginning and handling assets is too complicated at the time of foundation. Jodie Bradby mentioned that there is no separate condensed matter group in Australia and New Zealand but is part of the AIP groupings. Yokoyama asked Bradby to announce the foundation of DCMP to Australian community and to encourage them to join. Rajadeep Singh Rawat stated that in Singapore, the condensed matter society is not very large while the material science community is rich and huge. He asked if DCMP has a plan to establish a legal entity status. Nojiri answered the division plans for transfer to this status in six years, and the transfer is intended only as a technical measure to treat financial issues. S.P. Kim added that even after DPP was legalized, the division is not independent of AAPPS and is called AAPPS-DPP.

S.P. Kim proposed to build up a systematic divisional website at the AAPPS headquarter, i.e., at APCTP, so that one could see contents of all divisions at once. Yokoyama stated that all division websites are already linked from the AAPPS main page. Nojiri explained that the domain name of DCMP has not yet registered. Yokoyama stated that it is possible to have more than two domain names for a single website, and suggested Nojiri to specify the second name under the AAPPS domain name from a systematic point of view for the readership. Fu-Jen Kao voiced that JSAP is the largest society and seems to run one of the most successful condensedmatter related conferences in the Asia Pacific region. Therefore, cohosting a member-society's annual conference with the division meeting seems to be very efficient and interesting. S.P. Kim also hoped JSAP to join DCMP, as JSAP and JPS are two independent member societies of AAPPS. Yokoyama summarized that active participation from JSAP is strongly encouraged.

Meng-Fan Luo stated that although the Physical Society located in Taipei does not have many participating members at present, more members will attend in future. In Taiwan, they have recently established a new division of particles and fields, and biophysics and computational physics divisions will be established in coming future. The condensed matter group covers a large area, and it is separated into several smaller divisions.

Xiang stated that six core members participating to DCMP are from CPS. Each division of CPS, associated with condensed matter, has a representative. Xiang explained that CPS organizes annual meetings of condensed matter in July each year. There is a possibility to combine this with the division meeting as a joint meeting.

(5) President Yokoyama proposed a motion to vote for the approval of the establishment of DCMP in AAPPS. The motion was unanimously agreed. Yokoyama congratulated Nojiri. For the next formal process, approval from not less than four member societies is required according to the bylaw.

(6) Treasurer Kim reported the financial status of AAPPS. He explained that in 2019 we started with a carry-over of KRW 52,000,000 and the balance as of December 15, 2020 was KRW 63,000,000 (USD 53,000) which is a surplus. The Leo Koguan Foundation has USD 36,500 after USD 10,000 has been excluded for AAPPS Bulletin (AB). The major income comes from AAPPS's membership fees, which are USD 500 for each society. The major expenses are the certificate case and shipping costs for AAPPS activities. Yokoyama expressed concern that the number of societies paying the membership fees is continuously decreasing. Bradby mentioned that the invoice may be missed at the time of transition to the new staff members [*]. Five societies are donating USD 5,000 each as AB contribution. The support from APCTP is USD 358,050 since 2004, and DACG covers the "aapps org" domain fee for the next five years. [*Note added: this was subsequently resolved by the treasurers and the AIP did actually pay their invoice].

(7) Kao, the chair of the CN Yang Award selection committee reported on the current situation and future perspective of the CN Yang Award. He explained about the timeline of the 2020 Awards and the selection process of the awardees. The call started on February 3, 2020, and nominations were closed on April 15. After initial screening to check the eligibility, the selection committee was formed. Reviewers were appointed by the committee and the evaluation reports were prepared by the reviewers approximately till the end of May. The exchange of opinions and online meetings were started five weeks later so that the committee members could have enough time to think carefully. Each winner delivered a talk at the award ceremony held on November 5, 2020. Among 23 nominees in nine categories, those in three categories covered by the AAPPS divisions were pre-screened by each division while others were evaluated by reviewers. The committee received written evaluation reports and selected 11 candidates (maximum three from each category), based on the scrutinization of the reports and discussion. Afterwards, five semifinalists were chosen by voting and finally three winners were chosen by voting. The voting was conducted by committee members excluding the chair.

There are some feedbacks from the last-year meetings. The main issues are i) lack of basic statistics regarding a candidate as a reference, ii) insufficient criticalness in review report to qualify the candidate, and iii) many do not know that an individual can nominate. Kao proposed minor amendments in the evaluation form.

In the current rule, the selection committee consists of members chosen from three categories, i.e., AAPPS council, AAPPS divisions and APCTP science council, and the number of members from each category is set to be equal. The number of divisions will soon become five. The increase in number # may lead to expansion in the size of the committee, thus may cause difficulty in coordination. Therefore, Kao proposed to limit the number of the committee members up to 12 provided that the chair is not counted in. In the maximum case, (8-#), #, and four committee members will be allocated to AAPPS council, AAPPS divisions, and APCTP science council, respectively. S.P. Kim asked how to strike a balance between societies. Kao answered that the role of each society is to nominate, and selection is made by the committee.

Gui-Lu Long proposed routine of the subjects in the CN Yang Awards, in order to protect some minority subjects from disciplines having many recipients. Kao responded that the committee selects the best candidates each year and the relative impact and standing of nominees in his/her category really count. Yokoyama mentioned that we should try to cover all the fields of physics as much as possible in a long run. Long suggested to set subjects of the two recipients rotating and the remaining one free, among three recipients. Kao said this would be a very good consideration and will become a consensus rather than a written rule. Long agreed to this point.

Subsequently, Kao voiced that considering the foundation of new division(s), in particular the huge areas covered by DCMP, we shall relax the rule for pre-screening to allow maximum three nominees from each division rather than one in the current rule. This opinion was seconded by Luo and S.P. Kim. Yokoyama once again clarified the current process: We call for nominations to member societies and participants of APPC. For nominees those who have been classified to corresponding divisions, their application forms are sent to the division chair. The division chair forms a sort of sub-selection committee inside the division for pre-screening, afterwards, one candidate is chosen from the division. The number of pre-screened candidate(s) might be changed from one to three, considering the new division formation.

Kurunathan Ratnavelu asked whether the number of committee members will be 12 or remain 9 next year. Yokoyama responded that it will be 12 if the current rules are applied and the new division, DCMP, is included. Finally, Kao proposed to limit the maximum number of selection committee members up to 12. The motion was unanimously agreed. Yokoyama added that we need to consult with APCTP as well. Written amendments of rules will be circulated by the next council meeting and the rules should be fixed by April, 2021.

(8) Keun-Young Kim reported on the progress of the establishment of the Division of Particles and Fields (DPF). The first discussion started after the banquet of APPC14 in 2019. He introduced the list of representatives from five societies, i.e., AIP, CPS, JPS, KPS, and the Physical Society located in Taipei. After two meetings, a small working group was formed. The first working group meeting will take place soon, after Christmas or in the new year. Yokoyama asked about the possibility of participation from India.

(9) In 2017 under the leadership of the former president Long, AAPPS determined the rules on the sponsorship, co-sponsorship, and endorsement of AAPPS activities. The only case applied to the sponsorship or co-sponsorship so far is APPC without any problem. Yokoyama proposed to amend the application due date for endorsement, which is four months in advance in the original rule. As approval in email communications does not need a long time, the proposed deadline is three weeks before the desired notification date. The amendment was approved by the council members. Yokoyama introduced Article 3 on the criteria, which must be satisfied to be sponsored, co-sponsored, or endorsed. DACG and DCMP incorporated these terms in their bylaws as codes of conduct. Yokoyama hopes other divisions to do so as well.

(10) President Yokoyama presented the list of his activities following the 43rd Council Meeting. He personally attended the JPS meeting held online, as the president, he attended the Meeting of the Physical Society of Philippines held online in October, the DPP annual meeting, CN Yang Award ceremony, the joint meeting of KPS and JPS in November, and DACG's first online conference in November 2020. At the 43rd Council Meeting, he proposed to establish a joint award between AAPPS and each member society. He is collecting information from each society about the type of awards being provided, especially for young researchers. He is sometimes asked about merit of being an AAPPS member. Establishment of such an award may help to answer this question. He hopes to provide joint presentation awards at the 4th Meeting of the Physical Society located in Taipei as a pilot case. He calls for other societies if interested in such a joint award.

(11) President Yokoyama summarized the last meeting, i.e., 44th Council Meeting, Part I. There were reports from division chairs on division activities. Progresses toward the formation of DCMP and the Division of Computational Physics (DCP) were reported. Yokoyama attended the preparation meeting for the division of computational physics inside JPS, and introduced possible activities of AAPPS next year. Any progress on AB will be reported by email. Status of a legal entity is difficult to achieve in a short time. We will continue discussion on APPC15 and will have a council meeting in March, 2021. Yokoyama added that the forthcoming APPC will be a much larger conference than Choi presently anticipates, and suggested possibility of 4.5 or up to 5 days for the sessions.

(12) President Yokoyama announced that the next council meeting will be scheduled in March 2021, and closed the meeting.

Authors' contributions

The authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Reference

1. A.W. Thomas et al., Nuclear Physics News 30, 3-45 (2020) http://www.nupecc.org/npn/npn303.pdf