As promised in the last issue, this issue spotlights ISIT'98 -- the
International Symposium on Information Theory for this year of Golden
Jubilee celebrations. The issue begins with a look at the symposium
itself -- a report on symposium activities, a look at some images from
ISIT'98, and a collection of signatures gathered from many of the award
recipients after the ISIT'98 awards ceremony. The issue continues with
important announcements from ISIT'98 -- the winner of the 1999 Shannon
Award, the 1998 IT Society Paper Award, and the winning logo from the
Information Theory Society logo contest were all announced at ISIT'98 and
are all reported in this issue. Following the announcements come more
detailed reports on some of the highlights from the symposium. Neil Sloane
writes about the 1998 Shannon Lecture, Tom Kailath reports on his ISIT'98
plenary lecture (look for more plenary lecture reports in upcoming issues
of the Newsletter), and some Shannon Award winners reflect on Shannon and
the field of information theory. Later in the issue you will find reports
on some of the other activities that took place around the world in
celebration of Claude E. Shannon and the field that his work created and
continues to inspire.
Also in this issue are Thomas Ericson's final column as 1998 president of the
Information Theory Society, a fascinating look at a little-known chapter in
the history of spread-spectrum technology, and, of course, another clever
puzzle from the inexhaustible pen of Sol Golomb. Finally, we note the sad
passing of Dwight O. North, inventor of the matched filter and recipient of
an IT Society Golden Jubilee Award for Technological Innovation.
This issue marks the end of my three year term as editor of the IEEE
Information Theory Society Newsletter. I have enjoyed my term as editor
and owe many thanks to all of the people who have made the creation of this
Newsletter possible and pleasurable. While I can't name all of the people
who have been involved in this process, I will here note a few. Thanks are
owed to the regular contributors of columns: Tony Ephremides with his
"Historian's Column," Sol Golomb with "Golomb's Puzzles", Greg Pottie
with the minutes from the Board of Governors Meeting, and Raymond Yeung
with his regular column on "New Books" have kept the readers amused,
challenged, and informed through all three years of my term as editor. I
have also received invaluable support from three Information Theory Society
presidents -- first Jerry Gibson, then Sergio Verdu, and now Thomas Ericson --
to all of whom I owe great thanks both for their regular columns and for their
help and encouragement in much of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into
the Newsletter's creation. Thanks also go to the incoming Society president,
Ezio Biglieri; to the staff at IEEE, in particular Ann Goedkoop, Robin
Edwards, Andrea Watson, and Bob Smrek; and to a variety of Society members
and officers including Ramesh Rao, Rob Calderbank, Steve McLaughlin, Vijay
Bhargava, Ubli Mitra, and Alex Vardy. Finally an enormous number of
individuals have willingly contributed their time and talents to writing
feature articles, chasing down stories, and keeping me informed of relevant
awards and events for the Newsletter; I owe great thanks to all of them and
all of the others who have encouraged and challenged me with their feedback.
As usual, your comments and suggestions on the Newsletter -- past, present,
and future -- are welcome. Since the new editor for the Newsletter has not
yet been announced, materials for the March 1999 issue of the Newsletter
should be sent to my address.
Michelle Effros
Department of Electrical Engineering (MC 136-93)
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California 91125
USA
Tel: +1 (626) 395-3729
Fax: +1 (626) 564-9307
e-mail: effros@caltech.edu
Electronic submission, especially in LaTeX format, is encouraged.
All submissions will be forward to the new editor. The deadlines for
receiving material for the next few issues are as follows.