2001 IEEE Annual Election 

The election ballots are beginning to be sent to all IEEE voting members. We urge you to:

• Sign your ballot in the appropriate area.
• Use the pre-addressed, postage paid envelope provided.
• Allow ample delivery time for your signed ballot to arrive at our election vendor by 12:00 p.m. EST, 1 November 2001.
• Take advantage of your right to vote!
• Be eligible to win that laptop!

Let your vote be counted!

IEEE Xplore Functionality improves for IEEE members

The first major upgrade to the IEEE Xplore website, release 1.2, has been implemented! The new features include:

• Hyperlinks within the reference section of select abstracts (published since 1996) to the corresponding source, if contained in the IEEE Xplore database
• A redesign of the welcome page to include an article counter, contacts, links to product information, news and IEEE Spectrum Online
• A PDF file size indicator
• A "Getting Started" guide
• Postscript PDF files that will replace some older files created from scanned hardcopy
• Member access (determined by subscription) to content from IEEE Computer Society periodicals

To check it out, visit http://www.ieee.org/ieeexplore

New Power Electronics Technical Committees Established

The IEEE Power Electronics Society has authorized the creation of three new technical committees: DC Systems, chaired by Jose Cobos of the Universidad Polytech de Madrid, Spain; Rectifiers and Inverters, chaired by Fang Peng of Michigan State University; YSA Motor Drives, chaired by Alfio Conoli of the University of Catania, Italy. The new committees join six established technical study groups: Devices, Components and Packing; Transportation; Telecommunications Energy; Electronic Transformers; Simulation, Modeling and Control; and Education. To participate in one of the technical committees, send an e-mail to the PELS Administrator, Bob Myers, at bob.myers@ieee.org.

2001 IEEE EAB Award winners announced

The IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) has named seven individuals and one company to be honored with the annual IEEE EAB awards for outstanding contributions to education. Selections were made at the EAB meeting during the IEEE Organizational Units Meeting in New Brunswick, NJ USA 22 June 2001.

• The IEEE EAB Pre-College Educator Award, established in 2000: The first recipient, Ervin L. Nevsimal, Tampa, FL
• IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement Award in Accreditation Activities: Carl Dennison Avers and Stanley L. Love
• IEEE EAB Meritorious Achievement Award in Continuing Education: C. P. Wong
• IEEE EAB Major Educational Innovation Award: Ken Goldberg
• IEEE EAB Meritorious Service Citation: Kenneth R. Laker and Jerry R. Yeargan
• IEEE EAB Employer Professional Development Award: AT&T School of Business and Technology

Full story at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/newswire72.htm.

Regions Respond to Informal Education Questionnaire (by Lynn Murison)

Pre-college education is currently the hot topic among members, according to a 2001-2002 IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) regional survey. This spring, in Regions 3, 7, 8, and 10, each Region's Education Chair and an EAB representative addressed a meeting in order to reacquaint members with the activities of the EAB and to informally survey them as to education needs and future interests.

The Education Chairs of the remaining regions plan to deliver the same presentation and gather information from the informal survey at 2002 meetings. The EAB Regional Education Chair Committee hopes that this informal survey, when completed, will help provide direction for future programs.

Of the responding members in the participating regions, 67% of members reported most interest in promoting technological literacy for K-12 students. Region 3 suggested universities send representatives to speak to high school students, contests on hardware development, and pilot programs run by engineering companies. There was agreement that the problem in running these programs is finding volunteers with enough time to plan and implement them.

Continuing professional development requirements and university accreditation was next in importance. Only 38% of members report requirements to maintain licensure or chartered engineer status, but most are very interested in them. They reported that testing and training, when required, is usually conducted by national societies, universities, and consulting firms. There was interest in distance learning using online or video courses and workshops to provide material, financial, and administrative support.

A common request was for access to educational information worldwide. Most respondents want a central database with daily updates about educational opportunities and resources. All the regions recognized the impediments to developing an easily accessible database because technical resources vary significantly from country to country.

It was suggested that the next step should be a formal interests/needs survey to identify actions/strategies to meet education needs. The informal survey summary and the questions are posted at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/eab/oc/rec/index.htm.

The following members were updated to Senior Member status at the August 2001 Admission and Advancement Panel meeting held in Montreal, Canada

• Reveendra K. Rao - London
• Jon M. Preston- Victoria

For more information on the Nominate a Senior Member Initiative (NSI) Program, please visit http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/sminitiative.html 

• 2001 IEEE Holm Conference on Electrical Contacts

10-12 September 2001
Montreal, Quebec
For more information please visit http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/cpmt/tc1/2001call.html/

• 2001 IEEE Power Tech Conference

10-13 September 2001
Porto, Portugal
For more information please visit http://power.inescn.pt/powertech/

• European Solid-State Circuits Conference (ESSIRC 2001)

18-21 September 2001
Villach, Austria
For more information please visit http://www.esscirc.org/esscirc2001/

• IEEE Petroleum and Chemical Industry Technical Conference (PCIC 2001)

24-26 September 2001
Toronto, Ontario
For more information please visit http://www.ieee-pcic.org/base/pcic2001.htm

• 2001 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems (SIPS)

26-28 September 2001
Antwerp, Belgium
For more information please visit http://www.imec.be/sips/

• International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communication (PIMRC 2001)

30 Sept - 2 October 2001
San Diego, California
For more information please visit http://www.pimrc2001.org/

• Solar Odyssey 2001

28-30 September 2001
Saskatchewan Science Centre and the Hotel Saskatchewan
Regina, Saskatchewan
For more information please visit http://www.solarenergysociety.ca

• International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communication (PIMRC 2001)

30 Sept - 2 October 2001
San Diego, California
For more information please visit http://www.pimrc2001.org/

• International Conference on Image Processing 2001 (ICIP-2001)

7-10 October 2001
Thessiloniki, Greece
For more information please visit http://icip01.ics.forth.gr

• International Telecommunications Energy Conference (INTELEC)

14-18 October 2001
Edinburgh, Scotland
For more information please visit http://conferences.iee.org/INTELEC2001/

• Multimedia Technology and Applications Conference (MTAC 2001)

7-9 November 2001
University of California
Irvine
For more information please visit http://www.mtac.uci.edu

• International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC)

4-6 February 2002
San Francisco, California
For more information please visit http://www.isscc.org/isscc

• 48th Annual Pulp and Paper Industry Technical Conference

17-21 June 2002
Sheraton Centre, Toronto
For more information please visit http://www.pulpandpaper2002.com

• International Conference on Modeling and Simulation of Electric Machines, Convertors and Systems

18-21 August 2002
École de technologie supérieure, Montreal, Quebec
For more information please visit http://www.electrimacs2002.com/

For more IEEE conferences, visit IEEE Conference Search at http://www.ieee.org/conferencesearch/.

You can send any submissions by email to the editor:
Abhi Gupta at a.k.gupta@ieee.org

Please ensure you send in your submission by the 20^th of the month