IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Magazine - January 2018 - 3

Editorial

by M.E. El-Hawary

nfortunately, I must begin this
editorial on a sad note: Prof.
Lotfi A. Zadeh passed away on 6
September 2017 in his home in Berkeley, California. As commemoration, a
future issue of IEEE Systems, Man,
and Cybernetics Magazine will have
special sections to honor his memory.
Seeing as this article marks the beginning of our magazine's fourth year
of publication, it would be practical to
inform our readers of and seek their
feedback on aspects that guide our
publishing strategies. Recently, while
updating IEEE membership profiles,
Members were asked to indicate what
they hope to achieve with their membership. Choices included remaining
technically current, enhancing career
opportunities, and expanding professional networks. Those three goals
are interrelated. I am always tempted
to select all, except for the goal of obtaining the benefit of securing less
expensive insurance coverage, which
is apparently greatly desired, as it is
selected by many members.
One of the IEEE Systems, Man &
Cybernetics Magazine editorial board's
main priorities is to guide this publication toward becoming the central
source of information on the technical
areas that are covered within the scope
of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMCS). The SMC Group
was created in October 1970 by merging the IEEE Man-Machine Systems
and the Systems Science and Cybernetics Groups. In January 1972, the SMC
Group became the SMCS.
The core technical activities of the
Society are organized in a manner that
follows, in part, the historically based
division into the transdisciplinary ar-

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSMC.2017.2772498
Date of publication: 17 January 2018

The Key to Growth:
SMC Technical
Committees
eas of systems science and engineering, cybernetics, and human-machine
systems. Section 4, Article V of the
Society's constitution identifies three
technical-area vice presidents (i.e.,
the vice president for systems science
and engineering, vice president for
human-machine systems, and vice
president for cybernetics.) Moreover,
Section 3 (A, B, and C) of Article III of
the bylaws specifies that each of the
three vice presidents shall serve as
chair of their area's committee. The
cybernetics and systems science and
engineering areas each host 22 technical committees (TCs), and there are
13 TCs within the human-machine
systems area.
The main purpose of the TCs is to
provide a technical activities home for
our members and the research community in general. To learn about a TC,
a good resource is the Society website,
http://www.ieeesmc.org/, where each
TC's leaders and membership are listed alongside its goals and recent activities. As part of its charge, the magazine invites TC leaders to contribute
state-of-the-art and tutorial/review
articles to introduce readers to the
background and scope of their TC of
choice as well as provide bibliographic
material intended to showcase and
promote membership.
Members of our editorial board
are actively engaged in soliciting and
organizing articles, bibliographies,
and special sections dealing with TCs

Ja nua r y 2 01 8

in their areas of expertise. Each TC
may be allocated between four and
eight pages. While the magazine's
content is archived in IEEE Xplore
(http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/
home.jsp), the Society leadership may
decide at a later date to link the articles to the SMC website pages that
are dedicated to each of the TCs. This
may also be supplemented by links to
relevant calls for papers and TC member research websites that provide
updates on active research occurring
within subjects that are relevant to
the TC.
On behalf of the magazine's editorial board, I welcome Dr. Eddie Tunstel
as our 2018-2019 president and wish
him and members of his incoming
leadership team success in guiding
the SMC Society to new heights. We
wish to express our sincere thanks to
Dr. Dimitar Filev, 2016-2017 president,
and his outgoing team. It is no doubt
thanks to the untiring, dedicated senior volunteer leadership's unrelenting work that our Society is capable
of advancing with such great vigor
and excellence.
There is so much to report on, such
as impressions from Banff, Canada,
the site of the 2017 SMC International
Conference. Look for this in the April
issue of IEEE Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Magazine.
Have a great and productive New
Year!

IEEE SYSTEMS, MAN, & CYBERNETICS MAGAZINE

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp http://www.ieeesmc.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Magazine - January 2018