Welcome to the September, 2004 Issue of IEEE SMCS
e-Newsletter. This is the eighth Issue after recommencing
the Newsletter in January, 2003, and the second Issue
after the decision to post it quarter-yearly. According
to the new program, a preliminary version is made
ready for review 2 weeks before the posting. In order
to meet the schedule, General Chair/Program Chair
of SMCS conferences are personally requested to submit
reports and updates, all the VPs are requested to
submit reports regarding the subjects they are in
charge of, for instant, SMCS sponsored upcoming symposia
and workshops, couple of reports for each issue by
TC chairs, reports by SMCS local chapters about chapter
activities, and so forth well in advance. I must specially
be thankful to Bill Gruver for coming up with very
innovative suggestions and comments and making time
to personally go through the Newsletter and helping
to fine tune before posting. I expect continuing support
by all our TC Chairs and all society membership to
keep improving the society Newsletter.
SMCS
that boasts 72% of its membership from outside of
North America is arguably the most internationalized
society within IEEE. Society Chapters consist of Members
from one or more IEEE Societies who share technical
interests and geographical proximity. Please refer
the information given at http://ins.cn.nctu.edu.tw/July2004/0308_chapter.htm
if you are interested in joining and/or forming a
SMCS chapter in your area or contact me for specific
details. SMCS strongly encourage and support new Chapters
and Chapter activities.
SMCS
membership fee is one of the lowest among the IEEE
societies as we are working to increase our membership.
We are particularly targeting improving our memberships
from industry by focusing our technical activities
and publications more and more to meet the demands
and interests of professionals from the industry that
currently constitutes 32% of total SMCS membership.
IEEE Membership dues "Minimum Income Provision"
gives low income personnel a rare opportunity to join
SMC Society for membership fees of $ 5.00 per year
only. Please refer the Announcements section within
this Newsletter for further details.
I
would like to encourage the readers to make best use
of the "News" corner of the Newsletter also
to tell the world about your new research endeavors
that got off the ground recently or recent activities
at your research center or the company. We will also
feature Employment Opportunities and other relevant
information reports in this e-Newsletter free of charge.
E-mail your submissions and contributions directly
to me at ttlee@cn.nctu.edu.tw . Do not hesitate to
include couple of spectacular video clips or pictures.
Our
flagship conference IEEE International Conference
on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics this year will be
held October 10 through 13 in The Hague, Netherlands.
Over 1000 technical papers of theory and applications
well covering all important facets of SMC are to be
presented in this year's conference.
Thank
you for contributing to this Issue of the SMCS e-Newsletter.
I look forward to seeing you at SMC'04 in few weeks'
time.
Tsu-Tian Lee,
Newsletter Editor, IEEE SMC
President
National Taipei University of Technology
E-mail: president@ntut.edu.tw
