The 2008 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS) was held at Beijing International Convention Center (BICC), Beijing, China, from November 2 to 5, 2008. IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium, sponsored by the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society, is one of most important annual academic gatherings in the international ultrasonic field, which is usually held in American. This is the first time IUS goes to Beijing, the capital of China. This year's symposium is co-operatedly sponsored by Acoustical Society of China and the Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
On Nov.2, 12 well-known experts were invited to give short courses. They systematically introduced the hot research directions in ultrasonic field nowadays, including Medical Ultrasound Transducers, Ultrasound Imaging Systems, Photoacoustic Imaging and Sensing, Estimation and Imaging of Tissue Motion and Blood Velocity, Ultrasound Elastography, Acoustic Microscopy, Therapeutic Ultrasound, SAW Modeling Techniques, Ultrasound Contrast Agents, Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs), Time Reversal Acoustics, Acoustical Near-Field Imaging and so on.
The Symposium was formally opened on Nov.3. Prof. Jiqing Wang from Institute of Acoustics, Tongji University was invited to give plenary lecture titled "Acoustics of Traditional Chinese Theatrical Buildings" on the opening ceremony. His lecture illustrated traditional Chinese culture from a new aspect with plenty of data and detailed analysis, which benefited all the attendants home and abroad.
The 2008 IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium attracted great attention of scholars all over the world in this field. The organizing committee received 900 abstracts all together, among them 600 were accepted. The contents of these papers nearly covered all the aspect of ultrasonic study. The session about medical ultrasound technologies became the most focused and active part, especially the discussions on transverse wave sonoelasticity imaging of soft tissue being the highlight in this part. Besides, there were plenty of papers on Ultrasound diagnosis of bone, Micro-electro mechanical transducer, SAW devices, Ultrasound imaging and its application in industry and so on.
