Transactions on automatic control and the operation of the IDC

A panel discussion chaired by Stephen Kahne, Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. Members of the panel are Professor Y. Bar-Shalom, Technical Committee Chairman and Associate Editor Stochastie Systems, Mr. L. Fink, Technical Committee Chairman and Associate Editor for Energy Systems, Professor M. Sain, Technical Committee Chairman and Associate Editor for Linear Systems, Dr. A. Spang, Technical committee Chairman and Associate Editor for Applications, Systems Evaluation and Components. The Information Dissemination Committee is the organization within the IEEE Control Systems Society charged with responsibility for technical activities of the society. One of the major functions of this committee is to serve as the Editorial Board for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. A rather unusal mode of operation has been adopted by this group since its inception more than ten years ago. This operation has been described in several Editorials which have appeared in the Transactions but there have been few opportunities for open discussion with the professional community at large about the operation. [1, 2] In this panel some of the members of the Information Dissemination Committee will discuss the operation of the IDC and focus some attention on four of the 13 technical committees presently in operation. Some statistical information about acceptance and rejection rates of papers will be given. There will be an opportunity for discussion from the audience about the virtues and deficiencies of the IDC operation.