NASA Office of Logic Design

A scientific study of the problems of digital engineering for space flight systems,
with a view to their practical solution.

2003 MAPLD International Conference

Presenter/Author Information

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center
Washington, D.C.

September 9-11, 2003

Dear Presenter/Author,

Congratulations on having your paper accepted for presentation at the 2003 Military and Aerospace Programmable Logic Devices (MAPLD) International Conference. Acceptance of a paper (either oral or poster) for presentation makes it a part of the 2003 MAPLD International Conference Proceedings.  The proceedings will include all presentations, both oral and poster.  Additionally, all presenters will have their technical paper published in the conference proceedings.

For 2003, we will retain, with modifications, the policy on publications that was first established at MAPLD 2000.  For the Proceedings, select papers will be subject to a peer-review process and published in one of the AIAA refereed journals.  All papers, including those that the authors do not wish to subject to the peer-review process, will be published in the Conference Proceedings as a contributed paper.  Each author makes his or her own decision as to whether to submit a "select" or "contributed" paper.

Please take a few moments to carefully read the instructions below. We believe they will help minimize problems later in this process and contribute to the quality of your presentation and the publication.  These items have been compiled over the years and show what works well and what doesn't.  If you have any questions about these instructions, please do not hesitate to call or email mapld2003@klabs.org.  We look forward to working with each of you this year in creating effective presentations and a quality publication.

Important: Technology Transfer Considerations, Copyright, and Proprietary Information

Prospective authors are reminded that technology transfer guidelines and policies can considerably extend the time required for review of abstracts, presentations, and completed papers. Internal (company) plus external (Government) reviews can in some cases consume 16 weeks or more. Proper Government reviews, ownership of copyright, and the absence of proprietary information is solely the responsibility of the author. Authors should determine the extent of approval necessary early in the paper preparation process to preclude paper withdrawals and late submissions. The organizing committee and AIAA will assume that all abstracts, presentations, and papers are appropriately cleared for unrestricted distribution to an international audience.

All material submitted to the MAPLD International Conference is put into the public domain and is available for unlimited distribution in hardcopy and electronic formats.  Indeed, that is one of the purposes of this Conference, to transfer information.  Note, however, that MAPLD does not require you to sign over the copyright to your material and you may do with it as you wish.

The following is an overview of the process for this year's conference.  At the bottom of this page there are links with more detailed instructions.

In general, the presentations are free-format.  The instructions for writing your paper are relaxed with respect to formatting for contributed papers and you may use any professionally acceptable template.  For Select Papers that will be published in an AIAA Journal, AIAA formatting instructions must be followed.  We are doing our best to make this a very "author-friendly" conference.

The following list of reminders is to make your presentation both acceptable and effective, with lessons learned from previous years included.  In addition, comments received on our evaluation forms have been added.  The feedback that we receive is being passed on to as an aid.

• All poster and oral presentations are to be fully technical in nature.   Product descriptions for industry presenters should be kept to a bare minimum, and only as required to enable explanation of a technical point.
• Lessons learned: Yes, you did good work and everyone is interested in it; that's why we're here.  However, there are usually pitfalls on the path to success and breakthroughs.  It would be good to include one or two slides in your presentation dedicated to "lessons learned" as well as a section of your paper.
• It is acceptable to have your organization's logo in one corner of each slide or panel.
• Company slogans may not appear in your  abstract, presentations or paper.
• You should not advertise your www site in your presentation.
• Quotes from "experts" should not be part of your presentation or paper - you are required to make your own technical points and discuss/defend them in the provided question and answer time or during the poster sessions.  A historical quote or a quote from a famous person to make a point is permitted, if it adds to your presentation.   A quote claiming that your product is both "less filling AND tastes great!!!!!!!" is unacceptable.
• Do not use backgrounds in your presentation (i.e., no company logos, fancy graphics, 'framing', or even shading) as they are a distraction from your work, may harm the quality of the projection, and makes the printing of hardcopies difficult (I have to edit them to make them readable).
• The presentations should be on a white background and these will work well in our conference room; no shades, use pure white.  I have discussed this with the projectionist at the conference center and this will avoid having some colors wash out.  What looks great on  your PC at work may look horrible when projected, so we are using conservative rules for our first year at this new facility.  Dark backgrounds are not needed and make our printing difficult and expensive (this comes out of my overhead budget!).
• Shading text boxes, while it looks nice on a PC screen, is very difficult to read in a conference room and very hard to duplicate for the Proceedings.  Again, I have to edit these out so please don't do this.
• Use of animation and movies during PC presentations is generally not permitted.  If you feel that animation is necessary to make a technical point, special approval will be required in advance.
• Make sure that you do several dry runs of your talk.  This will ensure that you finish on time.  Also, the presentation will be smoother and the evaluation forms will be a bit happier.  From our experience, it is very obvious when people have not performed dry runs.  Please, spend an hour or so practicing.
• Be careful that your talk is not too abstract or too project specific.  For your dry runs, it is a good idea to find some engineers who know little or nothing about your work.
• Define your acronyms.  There is no need for you to do this verbally during your oral presentation; simply do it on the slides, which the audience will have in their hardcopy Proceedings.  You may include a slide with an acronym list if you like.  Of course, do not speak in TLAs.
• Sharpen your speaking skills; stay to the main points, minimize "fluff."   Again, this will make the evaluation forms happier.
• Talk to the audience, not to the screen.  Talking to the screen is generally a sign of not doing dry runs, often presents the audience with a less then flattering view, and often results in poor audio, as your head is turned away from the microphones.  Feel free to bring notes to the podium on a hardcopy of your presentation with key points highlighted if that makes you more comfortable.  We are engineers, not professional orators, and bringing notes is perfectly fine, I often do that.  There is a flat screen monitor embedded in the podium, slaved to the projector, for your assistance, so you can glance down at the screen and then regain eye contact with the audience.  It worked well last year and it will be in place again this year.
• Laser pointers seldom are very effective as the small dot tends to move too much.   An alternative which is simple and effective is to place large arrows at key spots of the slide which you wish to reference; you may add letters to them if you need to point to multiple spots and use color.  At a minimum letters should be used, both since the Proceedings are printed in a gray scale and for any colorblind people in the audience.  Saying, "the flip-flop in the circuit pointed to by the red arrow labeled A can go metastable ..." is preferable to waving the laser pointer around and making the first three rows sick.  Also, it is easier for those following in the hardcopy Proceedings.

Electronic copies of your presentation (both oral and poster) should be submitted to mapld2003@klabs.org by August 25, 2003.  Electronics files are due by August 25, 2003.  I do not want you running up to me at the Conference with a floppy disk, CD-ROM, zip drive, memory stick, or paper tape.  All presentations are preloaded on the Conference computer and checked out in advance.  Also, please note that I started this Conference so that I could go to a good engineering conference and I do not wish to fuss with computers during the event.  Additionally, this kills configuration control as the master copy of the Proceedings is on my home computer.  Lastly, I get grumpy when people throw disks at me and start whining at the conference about how they now want to have not only a new file but a video that requires downloading new players from the net.  Get your work in on time.  If you have a problem with a deadline, please let me know, I'll work with you, we really are author friendly.  Note the large, bold, red message above.  I made it a bit bigger than last year since some missed it.  Growl!!!!!!!!!!!!!  ;-)

Please name the file with the paper/presentation number, the last name of the author, and the letter 'S'.  An example would be: b2_katz_s.ppt.   I do not want several hundred files on my computer named: mapld.ppt.  These slides will be printed in black and white, reduced to one-half size, and distributed to all conference attendees at the start of the conference and appear in the Proceedings on CD-ROM.  On each page, please include the following in the footer:

Left Side - Last name of the author

Center - Page Number

Right Side - The paper number.

An electronic copy of your paper should be submitted to mapld2003@klabs.org or on floppy disk, CD-ROM, or zip drive by the start of the conference.  Final corrections will be accepted until October 6, 2003.  It is recommended that one printed copy be submitted to ensure proper formatting for Contributed Papers.  Please name the file with the paper number, the last name of the author, and the letter 'P'.  An example would be: b2_katz_p.doc.   The papers will appear both in their native format and will be converted to .pdf format.  If possible, please submit in both formats.  Care should be taken so that when printed in black and white, graphs and figures are readable.  Contributed papers normally should be from 6 to 10 pages in length.   Extra pages can be made available if required for the CD-ROM Proceedings.  An example of this might be an Appendix consisting of a large data set that is useful for an engineering reference.  On each page, please include the following in the footer:

Left Side - Last name of the author

Center - Page Number

Right Side - The paper number.

For Select Papers, please follow the instructions below for AIAA Journal papers as they take precedence over the instructions above.

ORAL PRESENTATIONS: Oral presentations for Sessions A-E are 20 minutes in duration (except for invited talks).   Following the presentation there will be nominally 5 minutes of question and answer time, moderated by the Session Chairperson.  The Session  Chairperson can move to the next paper if there are few questions or let the conversation continue, on his judgement.

The sessions will be held in a large facility.  It is recommended that your presentation be in either PowerPoint, or .pdf.  Postscript formatted presentations are acceptable provided that they are submitted on-time and any technical problems can be resolved [we have successfully used postscript but it took several iterations for some of the presentations].  Viewgraphs are not preferred and require advanced approval.  We will have several backups of the electronics presentations so problems are not expected; viewgraphs can provide added insurance.  Electronics files, as stated above, are due by August 25, 2003.   Video formats can be supported, if necessary, but will require a special request and verification of equipment availability and compatibility.  Since your slides will be distributed in hardcopy format to all attendees, the inclusion of detailed information on your slides is acceptable.  All presentations will be shown from a projection booth behind and above the audience.  We are supporting single screen presentations. 

POSTER PRESENTATIONS: We are working on the exact setup times of your poster.  In general, they should be set up no later then the morning of September 9th, prior to the first break.  Conference check-in will start on Monday the 8^th at 1 pm.  Your poster will be displayed from Tuesday September 9 through Wednesday September 10.  Each session of the conference on Tuesday and Wednesday (each session will last approximately one-half of a day) will include a period of approximately 45 minutes for poster paper presentations and discussions.  During the Wednesday morning session, there will be a period of approximately 45 minutes dedicated to the posters where you are required to have your poster manned (by either yourself or a co-author).  You will be supplied a poster board that is 7 feet high and 4 feet wide.  For an effective presentation, it is recommended that the lower two feet as well as the upper foot be considered keep out zones.  However, the entire surface will be made available for you to use.  Your poster will be held up with Velcro fasteners (provided by MAPLD) that are affixed to the back of your presentation.  Push pins will not work well with our posterboards.  For inclusion in the Conference handouts, Electronics files of your presentation are due by August 25, 2003.  We are still working on finalizing the removal time.  As a result of the large number of abstracts submitted, over twice as many as anticipated, we are currently adjusting our plans and schedules.

Link to additional information on manuscript preparation:

For Contributed Papers: InstructionsForProceedings.htm

For Select Papers (JSR): Prepare according to the Journal requirements: Instructions for AIAA Journals

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Last Revised: August 08, 2003
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