Editorial: One Year at the Helm

M ORE than one year has passed since I took over from Dr. Sankar Basu as the new Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—II: EXPRESS BRIEFS (TCAS-II). At that time, there were some challenges that still had to be addressed to further enhance the impact and already good status of TCAS-II. After one year at the helm, I would like to report on the advancements made by this journal and to express my thanks to the many individuals who have not spared their capabilities and efforts to help tackle, and, in many cases, to solve many of these challenges, as highlighted in the following. Let me begin by offering some statistics. Starting from De-cember 18, 2005, and as of writing this editorial, we have received almost 800 new submissions with an increase of 25% in relation to the previous year. This put a tremendous pressure on all the members of the Editorial Board (EB), as well as the reviewers, to make quick and efficient decisions on each manuscript , while guaranteeing a thorough review process that enables us to maintain the high standards of TCAS-II. I am very much indebted to all of them, given that they have all done such terrific jobs. As can be seen in Table I, the most significant data is the reduction of an average first decision time to less than 55 days, which amounts to a decrease of more than 100% in relation to the past. Much has also been done to decrease the backlog of papers. As you may be aware, the time from acceptance to publication for TCAS-II, due to the large number of papers inherited from the old (before the 2004 restructuring) IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR PAPERS (TCAS-I) and TCAS-II, was longer than other IEEE journals having a similar scope. More specifically, at the beginning of my term, the backlog could be estimated to have been at around ten months. A twofold strategy has been followed to address this important issue. On one hand, the CAS Society (CAS-S) has made great efforts to reduce the backlog by temporarily increasing the TCAS-II yearly page budget by approximately 600 additional pages, thus cutting down the paper queue to about 4.5 months. With respect to this, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to all members of the CAS-S Executive Committee, who approved the expenses necessary for …