2009 Highlights

Thomas J. Watson of IBM once said: “The great accomplishments of man have resulted from the transmission of ideas and enthusiasm.” We believe that we consistently provide a very nice “smorgasbord” of new ideas garnered from across many electrical engineering specialty areas each month, and we always try to do this with a high level of enthusiasm.

Our Editorial Board works diligently and enthusiastically to select the most relevant and current topics for Special Issues and for regular papers and other features. One recent measure of our success in achieving our goal of meaningful and useful topics was that the Proceedings now has the highest impact factor for the year of 2007 of any journal in electrical engineering. We believe that this is not only the result of a very wise selection of topics by our Editorial Board but also reflects the enthusiasm of our Guest Editors and authors who organize the Special Issues and write for our readers. These individuals are excited about what they are doing. And we hope that their work will also continue to excite our readers.

Let us now take a look at what we have planned for the year of 2009.

3-D Integration Technologies: It has been observed that only the very surface of an integrated circuit is electrically active: just microns out of the hundreds of a typical chip. Therefore thinning the silicon chips and stacking many of them one on top of the other increases the circuit density, allowing the Moor's Law trend to be maintained without exotic new devices. This special issue offers a thorough description of this emerging technology, assessing its advantages, pitfalls, and the potential wide range of applications.

UWB Technology and Emerging Applications: Ultra-wide-band communications research started in the early 1990s, and in 2001, the FCC ruling to allow unlicensed UWB transmissions greatly increased commercial interest. This special issue provides the latest information on UWB technologies and system design techniques, as well as industry standards, real-world products, and applications.

Cognitive Radio: Cognitive radio is a paradigm for wireless communication in which either a network or a wireless node changes its transmission or reception parameters to communicate efficiently without interfering with users. It is sometimes called “a computer that transmits” or could also be referred to as “a wireless communication system that computes.” Papers in this issue will cover a wide variety of topics that describe all aspects of the technology and applications.

Satellite Remote Sensing Missions for Monitoring Water, Carbon and Global Climate Change: This issue covers new or recent satellite missions intended to monitor water, carbon and global climate change. The papers describe the purpose of the mission, the related science and technology, as well as the data, image and signal processing utilized. Coverage will include missions from the US, Europe, and Asia.

Advances in Radio Telescope Technology: Over its lifetime of about 75 years, the technical development of Radio Astronomy has been a quest for larger collecting area and higher angular resolution of the radio telescopes, increased sensitivity of the detection (receiving) systems, and improved versatility of data reduction and imaging techniques.  In this issue we review the many developments that have taken place in this exciting field.

Optics and Photonics for Security and Defense: This issue presents an overview of recent developments, as well as the prospects and challenges facing optics and photonics technologies for security and defense.

Advances in Neural Engineering: The objective of neural and cognitive engineering is to study the behavior dynamics and complexity of neural systems in nature. This issue will focus on the representation of sensory and motor information, the electrical stimulation of the neuromuscular system, the development of novel electronic and photonic devices and techniques for experimental probing, the neural simulation studies, the design and development of human-machine interface systems, and artificial vision sensors and neural prosthesis to restore and enhance the impaired sensory and motor systems and functions.

Aerospace & Automotive Software: In recent decades software has enabled and defined the processes and products of the aerospace and automotive industries, and of the associated transportation, defense and space systems. In these systems, the role of software has evolved in many ways. This special issue covers recent progress and presents an objective view into the future of aerospace and automotive software engineering, architecture, components and systems.

Linear Motor Powered Transportation: The advantage of linear motor propulsion is the ability to make propulsion and braking independent of friction. This issue will provide comprehensive coverage with a focus on technology and applications.

Device and Circuit Technology for Ultra Low Power: This issue covers ULP design and what is being done to mitigate the deleterious effects of sub-threshold operation. The focus is on the new ideas being explored to drastically reduce the power required for a range of sensor, computing, and communications systems.

Silicon Photonics: Silicon optoelectronics and photonics have been the target of worldwide research efforts for many years. This issue provides an overview of the subject, including present status and recent advances that might help achieve practical silicon-based optoelectronic integrated circuits.

Organic Electronics: Organic electronics and optoelectronics are no longer new or novel technologies. This special issue will provide a broad overview of recent developments, from fundamental materials studies to advances in traditional and emerging applications.

During 2009, there will be an emphasis on invited papers for this journal. The ultimate goal is to publish a wide selection of informative tutorial and survey papers in regular paper issues, which will provide insight into other technologies, both inside as well as outside of readers’ specialties. Each regular paper will continue to be highlighted by an introductory prologue to provide added informational value to our readers.

We expect some additional exciting Special Issues to be published in 2010. These will include issues on RFID, Anthropomorphic Anatomical Model, Sparse Representation, GaN and ZnO Devices, and Internet Vision.

Today, every engineer is under increasing competitive pressure to be informed about the major trends in technologies in order to flourish in their chosen profession. And we hope that you, as dedicated readers of this publication, will continue to rely on the Proceedings as one way to remain informed about better ways of doing in our complex and ever-changing world.

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