VOLUME 1, ISSUE 6, DECEMBER 2007 MESSAGE FROM THE 2007 CAS SOCIETY PRESIDENT 2007 Annual Report CAS Society (CASS) is currently the 6th largest IEEE society with 10,588 members. CASS has 81 chapters worldwide and hosts 16 technical committees. In 2007, CASS sponsored or technically co-sponsored 56 conferences and published four sponsored and six co-sponsored publications. The 2007 CASS operating budget was US$ 6.77M, with US$ 6.81M in reserves. Strategic CASS contributed US$ 368K to the IEEE Circuits and Systems Fund thus endowing all its existing and newly established Society Awards. CASS established new Society Awards: “IEEE Circuits and Systems Society ISCAS Student Best Paper Award”, “IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Student Travel Awards”, and four “IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Regional Chapter-of-the-Year Awards”. It also added honoraria to the “IEEE CAS Chapter-Of-The-Year Award”. CASS has further engaged in new and emerging bio-related technical activities. It co-sponsored the IEEE/NIH BISTI 2007 Life Science Systems and Applications Workshop (LISSA 2007), cosponsored by the National Institute of Health's Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative. CASS also participated in the Special Interest Group (SiG) on Bio and Health Sciences initiated by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. CASS is currently revising its governance structure to include CASS Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) representatives on the CASS Board of Governors (BoG). Four GOLD representatives were invited to attend and participate in the CASS BoG November meeting held in San Francisco, USA. CASS is one of the founding society members of the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA). The transition of EDA-related assets begun in 2006 and will be completed by the end of 2009 (at 20% per year). CASS is one of the founding society members of the IEEE Technology Management Council (formerly the IEEE Engineering Management Society). CASS continues to be a member of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council, the IEEE BioTech Council, the IEEE Sensors Council, and the IEEE Systems Council. CASS was represented and actively participated in the Biometrics and the RFID IEEE TAB New Technologies Directions Committees. Conference Activities In 2007, CASS sponsored or co-sponsored 56 technical conferences and workshops, comparable to the number of conferences sponsored in 2006. The IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and System (ISCAS) 2007, the CASS flagship conference, celebrated its 40th birthday in New Orleans, USA, in May 2007. ISCAS 2008, ISCAS 2009, and ISCAS 2010 will be held in Seattle, USA, Taipei, Taiwan, and Paris, France, respectively. CASS recently selected Brazil as the venue for ISCAS 2011. IEEE CASS Workshop, Spring 2008 will be held in conjunction with ISCAS 2008 as a one-day workshop on “Views, Experience, and Prospects for Education in Circuits and Systems”. CASS continues to work with IEEE on including ISCAS conference proceedings in the Thomson Scientific calculations of the “impact factor”. CASS was a financial co-sponsor of the IEEE BioCAS 2007 conference, held in Montreal, Canada, November 2007. CASS co-sponsored the IEEE/NIH BISTI 2007 Life Science Systems and Applications Workshop (LISSA 2007) held in Bethesda, USA, November 2007. CASS was technical co-sponsor of the IEEE RFID 2007, held in Grapevine, USA, March 2007. CASS will also co-sponsor the IEEE RFID 2008 to be held in Las Vegas, USA, April 2008. CASS is working on establishing the second flagship conference comprised of three co-located workshops and/or smaller conferences on topics of common interest. This new multi-conference is planned to be held in 2008/2009. Publications Activities CASS Periodicals Review was held on November 14, 2007. Four CASS sponsored transactions were reviewed by the TAB Periodicals Review Committee: the IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems I: Regular Papers (TCAS-I), the IEEE Transactions on Circuits & Systems II: Express Briefs (TCAS-II), the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT), and the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (TCAD), and the IEEE CASS Magazine. The final Periodicals Review report is due in January 2008. In 2007, CASS appointed the 2008–2009 editorial teams for its sponsored publications. The ad-hoc Editor-in-Chief (EiC) Evaluating Committee received nominations in response to the open call for (self)nominations for EiCs of the CASS Magazine and CASS Transactions. The EiC Evaluating Committee has also devised and submitted to the CASS BoG a set of selection guidelines. The first four issues of the new IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems (TBioCAS) co-sponsored by the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society, were published in 2007. TBioCAS is a quarterly publication with the emphasis on microelectronic applications in life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. In 2007, CASS began publishing the bimonthly CAS Society Newsletter. This is an electronic publication bringing the Society news and timely information on the latest technology and research results. Most downloaded papers (since 1990) and most cited papers (in 2004 and 2005) published in CASS Transactions (TCAS-I, TCAS-II, TCSVT, and TCAD) and the CASS Magazine (downloads only) continue to be posted on the CASS website. CASS continued with the electronic preprint postings of accepted transactions papers in the IEEE Xplore. CASS allocated additional funding in 2007 to help reduce paper backlogs in CASS Transactions (TCAS-I, TCAS-II, TCAD, and TBioCAS). CASS continues to financially co-sponsor the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems, the IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, the IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems, and the IEEE Design and Test Magazine. CASS also technically co-sponsors the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. In 2007, CASS sponsored two modules in the collection of IEEE Expert Now online courses that feature the best of IEEE's educational content. These two one-hour courses are available through the IEEE Xplore digital library. Two additional modules are scheduled for production in 2008. Regional Activities and Membership Development Thirteen CASS Fellows were elevated in 2007 to the IEEE Fellow Class of 2008. Twelve 2007 CASS awards were presented to the recipients at ISCAS, ECCTD, DAC, and ICCAD. In 2007, seven new CASS chapters were formed: South Brazil Section (Rio Grande do Sul as the second Chapter in the Section), Peru Section, Calcutta Section, Nanjing Section, Republic of Macedonia Section (joint chapter with Computational Intelligence and Control Systems Societies), Palouse Section (joint chapter with Antennas & Propagation, Electron Devices, and Signal Processing Societies), and Portugal Section (joint chapter with Broadcast Technology and Consumer Electronics Societies). CASS has allocated additional funding in 2007 to support the development and sustaining support of regional activities and local chapters. In 2008, CASS also established a substantial regional support and chapter subsidy fund to further encourage local chapter activities. CASS has enhanced the DLP activities by allocating additional funding to the program and increasing the number of DLP lectures to be held in 2008. CASS continues to lead the effort to identify CASS GOLD members in each Region and encourage their participation in the Society’s governance. CASS BoG members are actively participating in the IEEE mentorship program. In 2007, CASS continued funding membership development initiatives and instituted a new “IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Student Travel Awards". CASS has established Women in CAS (WiCAS) ad hoc committee with a goal to actively promote, recruit, and include women members. At ISCAS 2008, WiCAS plans to hold a reception open to all members. Ad hoc CASS Industrial Liaison Committee was appointed in 2007. The committee will continue working in 2008 to develop initiatives of relevance to practicing engineers and CASS industry members. A comprehensive “Chapter Chair’s Kit” is available to CASS Chapter Chairs to facilitate forming, organizing, and running a CASS Chapter. Region 1-7 (USA/Canada): New chapter has been formed in Palouse, USA. The “IEEE Circuits and Systems Workshop, Spring 2007” was held in Vancouver, Canada with talks delivered by the CASS Executive Committee (ExCom) members and promoted a variety of topics within the Circuits and Systems Society's field of interest. Region 8 (Europe/Mideast/Africa): Two new chapters have been formed in Republic of Macedonia and in Portugal. Continuing are Chapter Development Awards for chapter programs, promotion of CASS at European IEEE conferences, and bonuses to chapters for well attended Distinguished Lecturer events. Region 9 (Latin America): Two new chapters have been formed in Brazil and Peru. Vigorous student activities and programs have been organized. Region 10 (Asia/Australia): Two new chapters have been formed in Calcutta and Nanjing. CASS membership continued to decline, albeit at a lower rate than in 2006. July 2007 membership data show decrease of 2.8% compared to July 2006. Technical Activities CASS has embraced new and emerging bio-related technical activities by sponsoring (BioCAS 2007) and co-sponsoring (LISSA 2007) technical conferences and by participating in the activities initiated by the IEEE EMBS Society. Two IEEE Expert Now one-hour on-line modules were produced: “Delta-sigma data converters” and “Design of active-RC filters for the analog front end of integrated circuit system chips”). These modules are audio-visual tutorial presentations by technical experts. Two additional modules that are scheduled for production in 2008 are: a second tutorial on filter design (follow up) and a tutorial on cellular wave computers. In 2007, CASS had 19 Distinguished Lecturers, with 29 Distinguished Lecturers Program (DLP) talks hosted by the chapters worldwide. The highest attended DLP lectures in 2007 were: 190 (Cordoba, Argentina), 150 (Nanjing, China), and 110 (Puebla, Mexico). Regional distribution of talks was: 7 in Region 1-7 (USA, Canada), 5 in Region 8 (Europe, Middle East, Africa), 4 in Region 9 (Latin America), and 13 in Region 10 (Asia, Australia). Three CASS Technical Committees have been re-evaluated in order to increase focus on emerging topics and technologies (Analog Signal Processing) and to consolidate smaller TCs (Blind Signal Processing, Graph Theory and Computing). In 2007, TC on Graph Theory and Computing has been merged with the TC on Nonlinear Circuits and Systems. Operations Five-year Society Review will be held during the IEEE February 2008 meeting series. Society Periodicals Review was held in November 2007. CASS has established new Committee for Awards Nominations to encourage nominations of worthy nominees for CASS Awards. In 2007, CASS has continued to revise and update the CASS Constitution and Bylaws and Polices and Procedures in order to make the CAS Society inclusive and equitable and its governance transparent to the membership. In 2007, CASS has initiated a project to re-design the CASS website and migrate to a modern content management system. Proposals from three vendors were reviewed prior to selecting the final vendor to complete the project. As part of the re-branding initiative, CASS has issued an open call for new CASS logo design. In 2007, the CASS ExCom continued to hold monthly, one-hour ExCom teleconference meetings. The meetings will continue to be held in 2008. In 2007, the CASS President had initiated weekly teleconference meetings with the CASS Executive Director to help with daily operations of the Society in a timely manner. Ljiljana Trajkovic President, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society