President's Column

Bruce Hajek

Its been an eventful year for the Information Theory Society, including two workshops and an international symposium. In addition the IT Transactions included a special issue in November, and another is planned for next year.

I can't reflect more than briefly on my term as Society President this year, since the year has gone by so quickly. One of the roles of the President is to represent the IT Society on the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE, which meets three times a year. One purpose of TAB is to oversee and coordinate the Society activities, such as the establishment of new publications and other products, and awards. Another purpose of TAB, which consists of volunteers, is to oversee the Technical Activities Department (TAD) of IEEE, which has full time staff and an annual budget of about three million US dollars. (In contrast, the total IEEE budget is about eighty million US dollars per year). The role of TAD is to provide support to TAB and to the Societies. The main event on TAB this year, in my opinion, was to change the way that the TAD is financed. A greater portion of TAD services, such as help with conference organization, will be charged to Societies on an "as use" basis. Additional income for TAD will be generated by a tax levied on Societies, levied in proportion to income from the Transactions Publications packages. The IT Society share of this tax is about 2% of the total tax, and will come to about $13K in 1996. These two methods of funding TAD replace the current ad hoc method based on incomes from sales of single copy conference proceedings. TAD also receives funding ($4.78/regular member/year) as a share of IEEE general membership dues. I believe the new funding model is rational and easy to understand, and will lead to TAD better supporting the Societies in the future.

Another role of the President is to chair the Board of Governors meetings. The BOG spent almost half of its meeting time this year deliberating about specific workshops and symposia, past and future. Other items are as follows. The BOG, following the recommendation of a committee chaired by G. David Forney, Jr., approved a change in the bylaws to establish the Claude E. Shannon Award as an annual award. The BOG approved the naming of Ramesh Rao as the Society Web Editor and approved associated financing. The BOG also approved the inclusion of the IT Transactions in the so-called "Communications Publications Package," which will be sold to libraries at a 20% discount.

A final role of the President is the pleasurable one of recognizing all the hard working volunteers that make the Society tick. In connection with the IT Transactions, deep thanks are due to Richard Blahut and Joseph O'Sullivan, who served as Editor-in-Chief and Publications Editor, respectively, for the IT Transactions for three years, through August of this year. Their replacements, Robert Calderbank and Steve McLaughlin, also deserve thanks for a full year of hard work in preparation and in actually taking over the Transactions in September. Of course in any one year, twenty or so Associate Editors and hundreds of reviewers also contribute many hours of expert attention to the Transactions.

This issue of the Newsletter is the final one to be edited by Ramesh Rao. You will agree that he has done an outstanding job with the Newsletter over the last three years. In addition this year he has enthusiastically become the IT Society's first World Wide Web Editor, a position he will retain next year.

Tom Fuja served the Society extremely well as Treasurer for six years, and he leaves the Society on a firm financial footing.

Daniel Costello played an important role in coordinating workshops and symposia. Stu Schwartz contributed as the IT Society liaison to IEEE Press, Andrew Barron and Anthony Kuh contributed as the (last, it turns out) IT Society liaisons to the IEEE Neural Networks Council, and Anthony Eprhemides contributed as the IT Society historian. Sarena Zabin was the able IT Society Secretary. Roger Cheng, as Membership Chairman, arranged a mailing to selected non-IT members in order to increase the IT Society membership.

Both of the IT Society Workshops this year were quite successful, by many measures. The first, focusing on Information Theory, Multiple Access and Queueing was held in St. Louis. It was co-chaired by Bixio Rimoldi and myself and drew 100 participants. The second, covering a broad sweep of topics in information theory, was held in Rydzyna, Poland. It was co-chaired by Witold Holubowicz and Paul Siegel and drew 85 participants. The complex logistics for the workshop in Poland were extremely well arranged by Witold and his team, making for a delightful meeting.

Yet the highlight for the year has to be the International Symposium on Information Theory, in Whistler in September. The general co-chairs, Vijay Bhargava and Mike Pursley, the Program Chairman, Ian Blake, and dozens of other volunteers can't be commended highly enough for their brilliant organization of this Symposium. I'm sure that Vijay Bhargava's breathtaking organization of arrangements at Victoria will bring many IT Society members to the 1996 International Symposium on Information Theory and its Applications (ISITA '96), in Victoria, B.C. Canada, September 17-20,1996, co-chaired by Vijay and Suguru Arimoto, with program chair Hideki Imai.

The newly elected BOG officers, Jerry Gibson (President), Sergio Verdu (First Vice-President) and Thomas Ericson (Second Vice-President) are sure to provide able leadership next year. You can see them in action at the Board of Governors meetings, the first at the Princeton Conference, March 20-22, 1996, then at the IT Society Workshop June 9-13 in Israel, and then at ISITA 96.

I wish you all Seasons Greetings and a Happy New Year!