The Year in Review [T-BME issues in 2004]

The author was reappointed to serve a second (and last) 3-year term as Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of the IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (T-BME). In spite of my wonderful collaborators in the editorial office, I hesitate because an EiC of a major journal is a position of great influence, and as such it should be limited in time to foster the infusion of new talent, new ideas, and new energy. On the other hand, the experience gained can be useful in implementing some needed changes in at a time when the publication market is undergoing major restructuring. Electronic publishing is here to stay, impacting not only the business model but also challenging the role of journals and our core ideas of quality assurance in the search for scientific results. Together we will be inventing the future. I briefly review the most salient features of T-BME publishing during 2004, provide the statistics obtained from Manuscript Central, and address my plans for the future.