Travel Support for MASS 2008 Conference; Atlanta, GA; September 29 to October 2, 2008

国际移动自组织和传感器系统会议（MASS）是移动和传感器网络领域的新兴会议。MASS完全由IEEE计算机协会赞助。该会议传统上汇集了无线和传感器网络广泛领域的研究人员。早期对无线网络和移动计算的研究主要集中在单跳网络上，即网络节点直接与固定基础设施（如蜂窝或卫星系统）通信。但在会议、医院、战场、救援、监控等场景下，需要支持多跳通信，网络节点之间需要通过其他网络节点进行通信。最近，无线社区网络（又称无线网状网络）被提议作为在新（商业和住宅）地区提供互联网接入的替代方案。本次会议旨在讨论多跳自组织和传感器网络系统，涵盖从物理问题到应用方面的主题。参加IEEE MASS等会议是研究生院经历中极其重要的一部分，它提供了与同行和更资深的研究人员互动的机会，从而有机会接触到无线和传感器网络领域的前沿工作。旅行支持将使美国的研究生能够参加这次重要的IEEE会议并展示他们的研究成果。由于大多数NSF奖项的差旅支持仅限于学生（即作者），因此该基金将使获奖者不会将研究经费用于差旅。

International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Sensor Systems (MASS) is an emerging conference in the area of mobile and sensor networks. MASS is fully sponsored by IEEE Computer Society. This conference traditionally brings together researchers in the broad field of wireless and sensor networks. Earlier research on wireless networks and mobile computing has concentrated on single-hop networks, where network nodes communicate directly with a fixed infrastructure, such as cellular or satellite systems. However, multi-hop communication needs to be supported in conferences, hospitals, battlefields, rescue operations, and monitoring scenarios, where network nodes communicate via other network nodes. More recently, wireless community networks (a. k. a. wireless mesh networks) have been proposed as alternatives for providing Internet access in new (business and residential) areas. This conference aims to address multi-hop ad-hoc and sensor networks systems, covering topics ranging from physical issues to the applications aspects. Participation in conferences such as IEEE MASS is an extremely important part of the graduate school experience, providing the opportunity to interact with peers and more senior researchers, thus having the opportunity to be exposed to leading edge work in the field of wireless and sensor networks. The travel support will enable US-based graduate students to attend and present their research results in this important IEEE conference. Since the travel support in most of the NSF awards is quite limited to students (who are authors), this fund will enable the awardees not to divert research funding for travel.