CTBTO 2009 - International Scientific Studies Conference

International Scientific Studies Conference

Vienna, Austria

10 -- 12 June 2009



The Conference is being organized by the Preparatory Commission for the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) for the
purpose of evaluating the capability and readiness of the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty's (CTBT) verification regime to detect nuclear
explosions worldwide. It will also address relevant scientific and
technical developments since the Treaty opened for signature in 1996.



The CTBT verification system comprises the International Monitoring
System, a process of consultation and clarification, on-site inspections
and confidence-building measures. The focus of the Conference is on the
International Monitoring System and on-site inspections. The
International Monitoring System consists of monitoring facilities, an
International Data Center and a global communications infrastructure
that detect signals and collect, process and analyze data in real time.
The system also generates and distributes data products in real time.
There are four categories of monitoring facilities: seismic,
hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide. The data-generating
facilities and the data-product recipients are distributed around the
globe, while the central node of the system is located in Vienna, Austria.



The purpose of the system is to detect, locate and characterize events
in order to allow discrimination between nuclear explosions and all
other benign events. The principal design objective is the detection of
events as small as possible and minimization of the area of uncertainty
about the location of detected events. The issues associated with each
of the four monitoring technologies are being addressed by the relevant
scientific communities. In addition, there is a need to evaluate and
optimize the performance of the system as a whole.



While the short-term objective of the conference is the evaluation of
the current system, the treaty provides a mechanism for improvements
using new technologies and methodologies. Accordingly, contributions are
solicited that span the range from current practices to potentially
valuable theoretical approaches. Some typical areas of interest are:



-Process modeling

-Quality of Service modeling, metrics and measurement

-Network reliability

-System dependability and survivability

-Data quality and data availability

-Measurement and evaluation of data integrity

-Database management

-Information security

-Data transport protocols

-Measures and computation of efficiency

-Performance measurement techniques

-Simulation tools and techniques



Authors are invited to submit contributions as one-page abstracts to
*iss-AT-ctbto.org.* The deadline for submission is 31 March 2009.
Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2009. The papers will be reviewed
by a scientific panel consisting of the coordinators for each of the
topics of the Conference. Authors of accepted abstracts will be
requested to make their full papers available at the Conference. The
scientific papers will be published in scientific journals according to
the praxis of the individual journals. Presentations made at the
Conference will be summarized in a special publication that will also
include a compilation of the one-page abstracts in the form of an annex.
The Call for Papers, Instructions and Template for submission of an
abstract, and registration forms can be downloaded from the CTBTO web
site: *www.ctbto.org*



Conference Topic Coordinators:



System Performance

Dr Thierry Heritier, Atomic Energy Commission, France

Prof Nicholas Kyriakopoulos, The George Washington University, USA



Atmospheric Transport Modeling

Dr Peter Chen, World Meteorological Organization, Switzerland

Dr Richard Hogue, Meteorological Service, Canada



Data Mining and Exploration

Dr Sheila Vaidya, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA

Prof Arno Siebes, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands



Hydroacoustics

Dr Wolfgang Jans, Forschungsanstalt der Bunderswehr, Kiel, Germany

Prof Kiyoshi Suyehiro, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and
Technology, Japan



Infrasound

Dr Elisabeth Blanc, Atomic Energy Commission, France

Dr Lars Ceranna, Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural
Resources, Germany



On-Site Inspecions

Dr Massimo Chiappini, Instituto Nazionale di Geofiscica e Vulcanologia,
Italy

Dr Edward Ifft, Georgetown University, USA



Radionuclide

Dr Harry Miley, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA

Prof Wolfgang Weiss, Bundesamt fuer Strahlenschutz, Germany



Seismology

Prof Zhongliang Wu, China Earthquake Administration, China

Prof Barbara Romanowicz, University of California-Berkeley, USA