Dear organizers of SQM,
    
    thank you for your recent notifications concerning the acceptance of
    abstracts submitted by the ALICE Collaboration for oral presentation
    in the parallel sessions of the upcoming SQM conference. We are
    converging on the list of speakers for the accepted ALICE talks
    right now, and the abstracts are being prepared for those talks that
    are the result of the merging of originally submitted ALICE
    abstracts as requested by you.
    
    Concerning the requested abstract merging we agree with your
    proposals in general, but there are two talks for which we would
    like to propose a different distribution of physics topics over the
    accepted talks. Originally, you have proposed to merge the abstracts
    [55, 93, 94] (Lambda/Kaon ratio (inclusive and in jets) and
    multi-strange particle production in Pb-Pb collisions) and [57, 84]
    (identified hadron spectra and flow in Pb-Pb collisions).  We
    propose to slightly re-shuffle the topics discussed in the accepted
    two talks in the following way:
    
      - one talk composed of the original abstracts [55, 57, 84a]
        focusing on vn, pT spectra, Lambda/Kaon ratio (also in jets),
        which discusses hydro and recombination
 
      - a second talk containing the original abstracts [93, 94, 84b] 
        including Kaon, Lambda, XI,  and Omega production which focuses
        on integrated yields and thermal model comparisons
 
    
    This proposed redistribution of topics is neutral in terms of the
      number of ALICE presentations (two talks are replaced by two other
      talks with slightly redistributed content), and we are confident
      that you agree with us that this sub-division of topics allows for
      a more efficient presentation of the relevant ALICE results.
    
    Please let us know at your earliest convenience whether you agree
      with this slight rearrangement such that we can proceed with the
      preparation of the corresponding merged abstracts.
    
    With best regards,                Pietro and Ralf (on behalf of
      the ALICE Conference Committee)
    
    -- 
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Dr. Ralf Averbeck
Research Division and ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH
Planckstraße 1 - 64291 Darmstadt - Germany
EMail: R.Averbeck@gsi.de
Phone: +49 (6159) 71-2764