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)