Greetings to all IT Society Members! As I write these lines in the first days of 1997, let me start by recounting some of the highlights of the information theory world in 1996.
A superb technical program and the hospitality of our Israeli friends, led by Shlomo Shamai, made the Information Theory Workshop held in Haifa in June one of the best, if not the best, meetings of its kind ever. Vijay Bhargava did it again; following in the footsteps of the memorable ISIT'95 at Whistler, ISITA'96, held in Victoria in September, was another example of Vijay's fine conference organization abilities.
Following a longstanding tradition, our members continued to collect awards and distinctions in 1996. To name some of the more prominent in no particular order: the IEEE Hamming Medal and the IEEE Piore Award went to Mark Pinsker and Shun-Ichi Amari, respectively; the Eduard Rhein Basic Research Price was awarded to Richard Hamming; Tom Cover was named recipient of the 1997 IEEE Hamming Medal; Irwin Jacobs received the U.S. National Medal of Technology; Dave Forney won both the Marconi Award and the Columbus Award; the IEEE Browder Thompson Award went to Carl Baum and Venu Veeravalli; and Kees Immink was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award. A paper describing a new universal data compression algorithm by Frans Willems, Yuri Starkov and Tjalling Tjalkens received the 1996 Information Theory Society Prize Paper Award.
The affairs of the Society and its Board of Governors ran extremely smoothly under the able and devoted leadership of our 1996 President, Jerry Gibson. The Society was more fortunate than Jerry in that the time-consuming preparation of the quinquennial IEEE review of the Society fell on Jerry's shoulders. I am delighted that Jerry will continue to play a key role in the affairs of the Society through several of the initiatives that are outlined below.
The internationalization of the IT Society is exemplified by our newly elected Vice Presidents: Thomas Ericson (1st VP) and Ezio Biglieri (2nd VP). The other key positions in the Society will remain in the same capable hands as in 1997: Rob Calderbank leading, as Transactions Editor-in-Chief, a dedicated and talented group of Associate Editors; Steve McLaughlin, Transactions Publications Editor, ensuring a smooth interface with IEEE Publications; Michelle Effros editing an increasingly informative Newsletter; Behnaam Aazhang, Treasurer, ever vigilant of the Society's financial health; and our Secretary, Greg Pottie, in charge of the Minutes of Board Meetings.
In addition, I am very pleased that the Fellow Evaluation Committee will be chaired by Dave Forney for another year; Tom Fuja will remain as coordinator of our Conference activities; and Ezio Biglieri and Ubli Mitra are in charge of our membership development efforts. Tony Ephremides' Historian column continues to be a periodic source of tidbits on the personalities in the world of information theory, sprinkled with the occasional literary flourish--just what the doctor ordered.
It is a pleasure to congratulate and welcome our newly elected members of the Board of Governors: Han Vinck, Mike Honig and Ramesh Rao; to welcome back Victor Wei and our 1984 President, Bob McEliece; and to congratulate Julia Abrahams on her re-election to a second three-year term.
In 1997 we can look forward to another International Symposium on Information Theory. After a six-year hiatus, our Symposium returns to the shores of the Danube, this time in the German city of Ulm. Renowed for its medieval and contemporary architecture, Ulm is the birthplace of a famous physicist who worked in the same institution as Claude Shannon in 1940-41. For the first time in the long history of ISITs, there will be two Shannon Lectures at Ulm, delivered by the recipients of the 1996 and 1997 Claude E. Shannon Awards: Imre Csiszar and Jacob Ziv. Do not postpone sending your registration...Ulm may run out of space to witness this historic doubleheader by two of our giants.
And while we are on the topic of ISITs, the organizers of ISIT'98, led by Dave Forney and Bob Gallager, are working hard to make this the special event that the fiftieth anniversary of information theory deserves. Dear to the hearts of many an information theorist, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will serve as the venue for ISIT'98. In the Call for Papers (which can be found elsewhere in this issue), you will notice an important change in the format of presentations. A large majority of Program Committee members felt that the elimination of the category of long papers (40 min. presentations) would streamline the reviewing process; previous program committees had not had an easy task deciding which submissions should be bestowed the select honor of a long presentation. Of course, depending on the experience in 1998, future ISITs may revert to the current dual format (or to adopt a new one).
Let me outline some of the initiatives we will undertake in 1997:
1. Planning of Golden Jubilee. July and October 1998 mark the fiftieth anniversary of Claude Shannon's "A Mathematical Theory of Communication." Several special events are already planned to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of information theory: (a) ISIT'98 and two IT workshops (San Diego and Ireland); (b) Commemorative Transactions issue with tutorial perspective articles to appear in October 1998; (c) Colloquium in Amsterdam on the future of information theory under the auspices of the Royal Academy of the Netherlands. Ezio Biglieri is chairing an ad-hoc committee on the fiftieth anniversary which will generate ideas and publicize all events related to the fiftieth anniversary. Please send your suggestions to <biglieri@polito.it>.
2. Cumulative Index. I believe that this Society should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the fifth decade of IT is out, of publishing an electronic cumulative index of the IT Transactions. Steve McLaughlin is chairing an ad-hoc committee that will make a recommendation to the Board. Suggestions on the format and scope of the index should be sent to <Steven.McLaughlin@ee.gatech.edu>.
3. Transactions Policy. Two major issues to consider: (a) Reviewing delay persists as the biggest source of frustration for authors of the IT Transactions. What is the extent of the problem and what steps can we take to correct this situation? (b) On several occasions, the Board of Governors has debated whether the IT Transactions should be monthly. This move has been defeated consistently (last time by a narrow margin). In 1998, the Transactions will have seven issues (including the October commemorative issue). In both 1995 and 1996, special issues were mailed with the regular November issue. Should we turn this de facto situation into the rule and make the IT Transactions a seven issues/year publication? The seventh issue could serve either as a special issue or as a (backlog-clearing) regular issue. Jerry Gibson is chairing an ad-hoc committee on Transactions Policy and would like to hear your suggestions <j.d.gibson@ieee.org>.
4. Membership participation. We would like to see an increased participation of the members of the Society in its affairs. For example, the voter turnout in the Board of Governors elections is typically around 10%; a similar percentage of our members attends our International Symposia. The volume of nominations for awards and other IEEE distinctions could be higher. If you belong to the silent majority, please do not hesitate to use the (free) bandwidth of the Internet.
5. Web site. Our World Wide Web site () has not yet reached its full potential. Ramesh Rao, our former Newsletter Editor, continues his service to the Society as Web Editor. He is hard at work improving the contents and presentation of the site. Please do send your suggestions and feedback to <rrao@ucsd.edu>, and help us make our web site the valuable tool that it can be in the promotion of information theory around the world.
I will expand on some of these initiatives in upcoming issues of the Newsletter. Until then, I would like to hear any questions, comments or suggestions you may have. You can reach me at <verdu@princeton.edu>.