The contact persons are volunteers, so please contact them only for problems or questions not handled by the submission server or this document. Please read this document carefully. Do not contact members of the program committee, as they do not have any control over the electronic submission process. The contact persons can NOT help you with problems related to your own system, eg, LaTeX questions, your mailer's limitations, etc.
The contact persons for this conference are
You may contact these persons with questions about the electronic submissions process when other avenues fail.
Please do not ask the contact persons to help you with system-specific problems, such as those with LaTeX, PostScript(tm), or your mailer. Such questions are best addressed to your system administrator or support staff.
This is a working document describing the electronic submission procedure for ATMOS 2001. The procedures and policies described herein may change slightly as we encounter problems or develop new solutions. (Yes, the software has been used for a number of prior conferences, but it's gone through a recent update, and it's maintained informally by unpaid, overworked, researchers.)
The software now maintains a list of all users which is then stored on a remote site in case of serious problems (believe it or not, we've had systems lose their mail capability and experience serious disk crashes). We recommend that you test/use the system at least one week in advance of the conference so that we can notify you of any problems/changes. There is no penalty for registering a submission that you do not send, nor for submitting and then withdrawing.
The basic steps in electronic mail submission are as follows. These steps are discussed further in the section entitled Submitting via email.
Details about the commands can be found below, in the section entitled Submitting via Email.
Many of you have used a variant of this server for past conferences (FOCS, STOC, SODA, ESA, WAE, etc.). However, we've recently made some changes that you might want to note.
dvips filename
This command usually generates a PostScript file that is printable both on A4 and US letter printers. If the dvips command in your system is configured to use the option "-t letter" as default, then to procude a PostScript file printable on an A4 printer use the command
dvips -t a4 filename
If you use another mechanism for generating PostScript, please contact your technical support people.
SIGACT has appointed an Electronic Publishing Board to investigate and develop guidelines and mechanisms for electronic submission and dissemination of STOC and FOCS proceedings and other SIGACT and theoretical publications.
The electronic submission process is an experiment and, as such, is not expected to work perfectly. While the current policies, as detailed in the following paragraphs, are relatively finalized, we expect to make some further changes. If you have comments on the policies, feel free to send electronic mail to epubs@hercule.csci.unt.edu (the SIGACT Electronic Publishing board). Questions about electronic submissions should be directed to ichatz@ceid.upatras.gr and zaro@ceid.upatras.gr.
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We will accept papers in PostScript(tm) format via electronic mail. We will not accept submissions via ftp. All electronic submissions must be in printable PostScript(tm) form and arrive by April 4, 2001.
Unprintable PostScript(tm) and late submissions will be rejected. PostScript submissions formatted for paper size other than A4 risk rejection without consideration of their merits. The committee accepts no responsibility for errors due to problems with the system, although we will do our best to make sure that no such problems occur. We request that you submit your paper as early as possible.
You may revise or withdraw your paper after submitting it. However, revisions must be received by the deadline. Withdrawals before the deadline can be done using the electronic submissions system. Withdrawals after the deadline will need to be arranged through the program committee.
Because of copyright restrictions, we request that authors only use standard LaserWriter fonts (e.g., Times, Helvetica, Symbol) or public domain fonts (e.g., the Computer Modern Fonts) in their preliminary submissions. For final submissions, it should be possible to use copyrighted fonts.
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Because we assume no responsibility for technical problems or problems with PostScript(tm), we strongly encourage prospective users of the system to test both the submission procedures and the printability of their PostScript(tm). We suggest testing the submission procedures by a week before April 4, 2001.
For those unsure of the printability of their PostScript(tm), we do provide a test-printing service described below.
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To submit via electronic mail, send electronic mail to atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr with one of the following subjects. The submission server will send you a reply indicating the disposition of your request.
Note that, due to recent changes to the server, the server will return slightly different messages for some of these commands.
Request help on the electronic submission process. You will receive this document (or a variant) in response.
Inform the server that you plan to submit a paper electronically. This is only used for electronic submissions -- you do not need to register if you are submitting printed copies of your papers.
The body of a REGISTER message should take the form
authors: "and"-separated list of authors title: title of document contact: e-mail address notes: anything that could be relevant to the program committee
Note that the "contact" field need not be specified when the return address generated by the mailer is exactly the contact e-mail address. The "notes" field is optional and only two lines of notes are reliably recorded. This should be reflected in the response to authors (what you received as response is what we recorded).
For example,
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: REGISTER authors: Theorist T. Theoretician title: Random Sampling contact: theorist@theory.edu notes: This is one of two papers I am submitting ^D
The server will return the key to use to refer to your submission (called the filename or key in the sections below).
From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Thu Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Submission registered This letter was generated by the prototype electronic submissions server for ATMOS2001 in response to a letter with Subject: REGISTER Sender: <theorist@theory.edu> ================================================================= Use the key "theorist-1234.ps" for your submission to ATMOS2001 with author(s): Theorist T. Theoretician title: Random Sampling contact: theorist@theory.edu notes: This is one of two papers I am submitting ================================================================= Thank you for using the electronic submissions server for ATMOS2001. If you have any questions or comments about using this server, please contact <zaro@ceid.upatras.gr> and <ichatz@ceid.upatras.gr>.
Like REGISTER, but the server returns a file name to use for testing (you can use this test file name with all the messages below). You may (but need not) specify the information on the paper (contact, title, etc.).
Submit (or revise) a paper. The body of the message should be the PostScript(tm) file. You must not attach your PostScript(tm) file to your e-mail. The server will acknowledge the submission. The acknowledgement will include an MD5-generated receipt for the submission, as well as basic information on the file so that you can verify that it arrived "safely". The basic information includes sizes (in bytes), checksum, first and last ten lines of the file.
For example,
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: SUBMIT theorist-1234.ps insert postscript file into main body of message ^D From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Thu Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Submission received.
.............
RECEIPT
-------
Submission 'theorist-1234.ps' received.
The receipt for the submission with key 'theorist-1234.ps' is
'c9e7d0e3a05f5230fbcd2ad170b6c258 -'.
FILE INFORMATION -------------------------------------------------------- Information generated on Tue Jan 12 19:18:41 1999. Your file is 404918 bytes long. Its checksum (calculated by the program below) is 23036. --------------------------------------------------------
..............
Revise a previously submitted paper. The body of the message should be the PostScript(tm) file. You must not attach your PostScript(tm) file to your e-mail. The server will confirm this revision with the contact person for the paper (as well as the sender of the SUBMIT message).
For example,
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: REVISE theorist-1234.ps insert postscript file into main body of message ^D From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Thu Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Revision.........................Your submission with key 'theorist-1234.ps' was revised at the request of <theorist@theory.edu>. Please send mail as soon as possible to <zaro@ceid.upatras.gr> and <ichatz@ceid.upatras.gr> if this is an error..........................
The server will also acknowledge the revision, as above.
Withdraw a previously submitted paper. The server will confirm this withdrawal with the contact person for the paper.
For example,
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: WITHDRAW theorist-1234.ps ^D From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Thu Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Submission Withdrawn. .......................Your submission with key 'theorist-1234.ps' was withdrawn at the request of <theorist@theory.edu>. Please send mail as soon as possible to <zaro@ceid.upatras.gr> and <ichatz@ceid.upatras.gr> if this is an error.........................
Test printing of the PostScript(tm) file contained in the body of the message. You must not attach your PostScript(tm) file to your e-mail. The server will return a message regarding the success or failure of the printing process. The server does not test for full compliance with the submission guidelines, such as length, page size, etc. Hence, a submission may pass this test and still be rejected without consideration of its merits.
We have also found that some PostScript(tm) successfully passes through the testing process, but is not printable. For example, FrameMaker(tm) generates PostScript(tm) that is only printable on a particular size of paper (if generated for A4, it will not print on US Letter, and vice versa).
Here is an example of the use of TEST PRINT
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: TEST PRINT insert postscript file into main body of message ^D From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Printing test..............Verifying your file ...INFORMATION FROM THE POSTSCRIPT(TM) FILE TESTING PROCESS --------------------------------------------------------Your PostScript file does not seem to generate any syntactic errors...............
Check on the status of an electronic submission. This status refers only to its existence and printability, not to it's status in the refereeing process.
For example,
% mail atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Subject: STATUS theorist-1234.ps ^D From: atmossub@ceid.upatras.gr Thu Mar 8 19:18:41 2001 To: theorist@theory.edu Subject: ATMOS2001: Status of 'theorist-1234.ps' ............................The following is our database entry for 'theorist-1234.ps' authors: Theorist T. Theoretician title: Random Sampling contact: theorist@theory.edu notes: This is one of two papers I am submitting receipt: c9e7d0e3a05f5230fbcd2ad170b6c258 - status: submitted.............................
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As with the hardcopy submission process, copies of electronically-submitted papers will only be read by members of the program committee and selected reviewers.
We do not plan to include a mechanism for encryption/decryption of submissions to ATMOS 2001. The primary reason for this decision is that the SIGACT community is honorable. Additionally, it is unlikely that we can provide sufficiently general cross-platform software that will not hinder the refereeing process.
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A final version of each accepted paper is required by May 15, 2001.
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The board maintains a WWW page and can be contacted via e-mail at epubs@hercule.csci.unt.edu.
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PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. FrameMaker is a registered trademark of Frame Technology Corporation.
Written originally by Samuel A. Rebelsky
Last modified March 8, 2001 by Christos D. Zaroliagis