Dear Participants for ASSC15,

I hope this mail finds you all well. I, as the program committee chair for the ASSC15 in Kyoto, would like to inform you about the current status of the preparation process of the meeting.

As repeatedly announced, Kyoto area is far from the source of the earthquake and the nuclear power plant.  The wind blows from the west to east in Japan, and therefore, radioactive substances are not detected in the western part of Japan like in Kyoto.  There is no problem in electrical power supply, because different electrical system from that in the eastern ppart of Japan is used in the west.  I would like to recommend the visitors from outiside Japan to arrive either via Kansai Airport in Osaka or Chube Airport in Nagoya, if
worried.

We are scheduling the meeting as Tetsuro Matsuzawa, the meeting president, recently announced.  We confirmed that 5 among the 6 keynote speakers expersseed their will to attend and talk in the meeting.  Unfortunately, one of the keynote speakers, Pascal Fries, cancelled and now we are trying to contact an alternative speaker.

A total of 343 papers were received from 36 countries and 322 were accepted.  This is approximately 80% more than recent previous ASSC conference, so we look forward to having a very successful conference.  We selected 72 talks and 250 posters (including cancelled presentations, less than 10 so far).  Now we are contacting the presenters and will fix the sessions fairly soon.

Because we received so many abstracts, we changed the number of the concurrent sessions from 3 to 4, and also set all the posters on the second day (please have a look at the website).  We are setting "the Disaster-relief session" on the final day.

Please remember that the deadline for the early registration is at the end of April 30, after which the registratio fee will be raised.

I would be looking forward to meeting all of you at the fluorishing
meeting in Kyoto in June.

Sincerely,

Tadashi Isa, NIPS
Program Committee Chair for ASSC15
http://www.theassc.org/conferences/assc_15

I herewith attach the message from Ralph Adolphs, the current president of the ASSC.  He will also organize the social neuroscience satellite.

**************Message from Ralph Adolphs**********************************

Dear Presenters and Attendees for ASSC-15

I would like to take this opportunity to express my personal commitment to this conference, and to encourage all of you to attend it.  While the recent disasters in the Northeast of Japan have captured all our attention, and spurred many of us to help, these are a long distance from the meeting venue in Kyoto.  The local organizers and committees of ASSC have worked very hard to make this the meeting with the largest attendance yet. Additionally, the social neuroscience satellite (immediately preceding ASSC-15) has all speakers confirmed.  I look forward very much to visiting Kyoto again, to a superb roster of presentations, and to seeing all of you there.

Sincerely,
Ralph Adolphs, Caltech
ASSC President, 2011 & organizer of the social neuroscience satellite