PHYSICS

From October 10 - 15, CERN and the Centre de Recherches en Physique des Plasmas (CRPP) of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), will be hosting ICALEPCS 2005, the 10th International Conference on Accelerator and Large Experimental Physics Control Systems, at the Geneva International Conference Centre (CICG). The meeting's scientific programme will be complemented by many industry-related events, including technical seminars, a three-day exhibition, and a series of pre-conference workshops. ICALEPCS is the prime conference in the field of controls for experimental physics facilities, including particle accelerators and detectors, optical and radio telescopes, thermo-nuclear fusion, lasers, nuclear reactors, gravitational antennas. CERN, which is currently constructing the Large Hadron Collider and its experiments, is a major user of such control systems, as are scientists at the CRPP-EPFL, who are in the Swiss Association in the European Fusion Programme and collaborate in the JET and ITER fusion projects. As well as reviewing control systems projects at major new and planned facilities, including the LHC, JET and ITER, this year's meeting will cover issues of current concern in the community. These include - Security and Other Major Challenges, such as handling ever increasing data rates, and operation in harsh environments, e.g. high radiation and magnetic fields - Development Approaches, e.g. the use of frameworks or toolkits, automated code generation, software engineering and management tools - Operational Issues, including tools required for efficient operations e.g. logging and archiving tools, man-machine interfaces, and web-based remote operation. Industry-related events will also form an important part of the meeting. Seventeen companies will feature in the exhibition, and in a series of seminars companies will present their specific solutions to control problems, as being implemented for example with the LHC and its experiments. For more on the industrial programme see its Web site. Falling in the year of the World Year of Physics, ICALEPCS 2005 is a EUROPhysics conference, organized in conjunction with the Experimental Physics Control Systems group of the European Physical Society. It will be attended by 450 delegates representing 160 organisations (laboratories, universities and industrial companies) from 27 countries spread throughout Europe, America, Oceania and Asia. ICALEPCS 2005 is supported by the Swiss Confederation, who made the CICG available, the Republic and State of Geneva, and the industrial companies Agilent, HP, and Siemens Suisse SA, Automation & Drives. Dell, an ICALEPCS 2005 partner, supplied the entire informatics infrastructure. The Haute-Savoie Département and the Archamps Business Park supported the organisation of three days of pre-conference workshops (October 6-9 ). Journalists are welcome to attend events at the conference. For more details of the programme see its Web site. To visit or attend the conference please contact one of the following: - Bertrand Frammery (CERN) Tel: 022 767 4519 or Mobile: +41 (0)76 487 3581 - Jo Lister (CRPP-EPFL) Tel: 021 693 3405 - Axel Daneels (CERN) Tel: 022 767 2581 or call the CICG, Mrs Severine Mondo-Beck Tel: 022 791 91 56, and ask for any of the above.