IEEE CIS Presidents Ad Com Report Xin Yao

IEEE CIS President’s Ad. Com Report Xin Yao IEEE CIS President 13 July 2014 Beijing, China

Publications – Current Status • Outstanding quality as indicated by impact factors: – – – CIM: 4. 629 TNNLS: 3. 766 TFS: 5. 484 TEVC: 4. 81 TCIAIG: 1. 69 TAMD: 2. 17 • High reputation attracts increased submissions. • In spite of increased submissions, our journals have very short review turn-around time.

Publications - Challenges • Increased submissions have led to the steady growth of the backlogs for several journals in terms of physical printing, although the electronic version of the papers were published promptly with DOI. • More strategically, our current portfolio of publications does not seem to support further grow of the society. – There are CI techniques that fuse NN, FS, EC and others. – There are industrial trends in “smartising” systems, e. g. , smart-X, where X = cities, water, grid, meter, home, phone, car, clothes, shoes, . . . … – There also strong interests in the Big Data, Io. T, CPS, … – How can CIS play a leading role in such trends?

Publications – Initial Steps • Additional investment in shortening the backlogs ($60 K in 2014). • In-depth review of existing Transactions, including co -sponsored ones, and investigation of a potential of a new Transactions – Sunset journals that are not growing as well as they should be. – Sunrise new ones that will help CIS to grow intellectually as well as financially.

WCCI’ 2014 • WCCI’ 2014 has an excellent technical programme. – Quite a few sessions are fully-packed – Excellent speakers – Very few no-shows for paper presentations • An outstanding achievement in a very challenging environment by Derong and Jennie (GCs), Cesare, Dimitar and Carlos (PCs), and their team. • However, there are issues, which we are fully aware of, to be discussed by Conf. Com.

Conferences – Next • • SSCI’ 14, Orlando, USA, 9 -12 December 2014 CEC’ 15, Sendai, 25 -28 May 2015 IJCNN’ 15, Killarney, Ireland, 12 -17 July 2015 FUZZ-IEEE’ 15, Istanbul, Turkey, 2 -5 August 2015 – 50 th anniversary of Fuzzy Logic in 2015 • SSCI’ 15, December 2015 (details coming up) • WCCI’ 16, Vancouver, Canada, 25 -29 July 2016.

Conferences - Challenges • Decreased number of participants • Plagiarism detection and fake paper detection • Increased financial pressure on our major conferences • Low participation from industry (non-academia in general)

Conferences - TCS • TCS = technically co-sponsored • IEEE TAB passed a motion to charge fees to CIS for TCS conferences from 1/1/2015: – TCS with proceedings: $1000 + $15/paper – TCS without proceedings: $1000 • We have no choices (given our tight finance) but to pass on the cost to TCS conferences • This creates problems for us, in particular in relation to IJCNN. We have to discuss with INNS about it and may have to absorb the cost in odd years.

Technical Activities • A major review of all Task Forces by TC chairs. – E. g. , Inactive TFs have been removed. • Fine-tune our TCs to cater for members’ needs – to incorporate the Big Data more explicitly into the DMTC title. – In conjunction with Conf. Com, support DSAA’ 15 as a CISsponsored conference • Continue to be very active in proposing and running special sessions, symposia and conferences. • Two “incubator” TCs: Emerging Technologies and Intelligent Systems – While most other TCs have “home” publications, these two TCs might find it more difficult to locate a natural “home” journal. Our new journal helps to address this issue.

Member Activities – New • Chapters Forum at WCCI’ 14 • Doctoral Symposium at SSCI’ 14 • IEEE 2014 CIS Industrial Application Success Story – The winner of the 2014 CI Industrial Application Success Story is Dr. Jyh-Horng Chou and his team with their application entitled: "Applications of Intelligent Evolutionary Algorithms in Optimal System Modeling and Mechanical Design".

Finance • Not an end, but means to the end. An important enabler. • The infrastructure costs (including administration) of IEEE have been increasing continuously. • We are trying to understand why and how, by working closely with IEEE staff members and other volunteers. • We have been frugal and will continue to be. – Holding more meeting virtually to cut down travel expenses – To encourage cost-sharing, e. g. , combining conference trips with CIS meetings, so that the cost is not charged or only partially charged to CIS – Remind people of existing IEEE policies, while being considerate about individual cases

Industrial Forum – An Initial Idea • An industrial forum for non-academics – Speakers are invited from industry • E. g. , CTO from companies – No paper submissions are required, only a title and abstract – No IEEE proceedings, although copies of abstracts may be distributed – Separate from existing conferences – Could co-locate with our major conferences, e. g. , WCCI’ 2016, to make use of the infrastructure • Need volunteers to help with such an “experiment”.

Final Remark • CI is a growing field. How can we ride on that growth? • We have excellent and dedicated volunteers. How can we keep them motivated? • We have approx. 7000 members, depending on the time of the year. Can we double our membership in 5 years?