From the Editor´s Desk

This Annals issue includes articles on the history of cybernetics. Specifically, Ronald Kline focuses on the famed Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 1956, and Philipp Aumann looks at extra-scientific factors and the cultures of various disciplines in a history of cybernetics in West Germany. Other features in this issue research software engineering in Japan, Czech scientific computation in crystallography, and retail industry software applications in Finland. EIC Jeff Yost also reviews the recent media coverage on the Annals article by Jonathan G. Koomey and his colleagues published in the last issue (vol. 33, no. 3, 2011, pp. 46–54). Finally, in his last issue as EIC, Jeff Yost thanks the Annals editorial board and staff for their work in maintaining the high-quality scholarship in every issue.