ATMCS Code of Conduct

The organizers are committed to having an open, inclusive, respectful, and welcoming atmosphere.

In order to make the conference a space where speakers present their work free of fear of judgement and where participants feel welcome, we have adapted a code of conduct based on the American Mathematical Society’s ethical guidelines as well as the 2024 CG Week Code of Conduct. As the CG Week Code of Conduct is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, some parts of this are used verbatim in what follows.

Expectations for Attendees

Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Bullying includes physical or intellectual aggression, use of inappropriate language, name calling, threats (explicit or implicit) of intent to harm or to coerce, especially in the context of an imbalance of power or authority.

If a participant engages in harassing or bullying behavior, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund. The participant is expected to stop any harassing behavior and comply immediately. Note that a response of “just joking” will not be accepted; behavior can be harassing without an intent to offend. If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns about the ATMCS environment, please contact one of the conference organizers or any session chair.

We will be happy to help participants contact the hotel, MSU campus security, or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference.

Expectations for Authors and Speakers

While research in applied and computational topology is an active research area, it builds upon foundations that are well-established within computer science, mathematics, and statistics. In addition, many publications are posted as preprints in ArXiv or presented at workshops and conferences before being officially published. To cement the free exchange of ideas that is essential for our community to flourish, the ATMCS authors (Here, ATMCS authors refers to any presenter of an invited talk, contributed talk, or a poster, as well as their named coauthors) are responsible for:

• knowing and communicating clearly how their work fits within the research community.
• giving credit to other’s work appropriately. Plagiarism—claiming someone else’s intellectual contribution as one’s own—is a violation of ethical research, and will not be tolerated by this~conference.
• speaking and writing respectfully about other’s work.
• responding respectfully and honestly to reviewer comments and audience questions.
• offering coauthorship to all who have made a significant contribution to the work presented in a talk abstract, poster, or paper.
• declaring conflicts of interest when submitting extended abstracts for contributed talks and~posters.
• disclosing IRB information, if the paper includes human-subject data.

If an author does not meet these expectations, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including asking the author to issue a correction that will be posted along with their abstract or paper, canceling the presentation, and removing an abstract from the conference website.

Expectations for Scientific Committee and Reviewers

The ATMCS Steering Committee is responsible for reviewing the extended abstracts for contributed talks and posters. Committee members must excuse themselves from papers for which they have a conflict of interest. If there is a new conflict of interest that arises or one is initially unnoticed, the committee member must notify the committee chair as soon as possible.

Both Scientific Committee members and their subreviewers must follow the following guidelines:

• Must declare conflict of interests appropriately. Conflicts of interest include: past and current students, postdocs, and advisers, as well as any active or recent collaborators.
• Submissions of abstracts and papers is confidential. Scientific Committee members and reviewers must not attempt to take credit for ideas found in the manuscripts they review, nor do anything that would obstruct the rights of the authors. In particular:
  1. All conversations regarding a submission must be done within the reviewing system, and reviewers cannot disclose to others the papers that they are reviewing.
  2. Results found in accepted contributed talks and posters is considered public knowledge on the first day of the conference, 21 July 2025.
  3. In contrast, results of unaccepted talks and posters is not considered public knowledge, unless published or made public by another means (e.g., posted on ArXiv).
• Reviews should be respectful and constructive. Comments such as good result'' oruninteresting’’ do not help the author understand the basis for the review decision. Reviewers are expected to use a tone that is appropriate and encouraging, regardless of the paper recommendation. Scientific committee members should review their subreviewers comments for tone, and ask them to revise if needed.
• Reviews should reflect the state of knowledge at the time of submission (e.g., requesting the author’s cite an ArXiv paper that was posted after the submission deadline is not appropriate).
• Reviews and committee discussions will comply with the timeline requested.

All scientific committee members should help each other improve the quality and tone of the reviews. If a reviewer refuses to comply, the conference organizers may take any action that they deem appropriate, including removing the review and declining submissions of that reviewer.