A new feature in our Newsletter will be devoted to following the career path of our past and present officers.

This time, it is my pleasure to announce that our Past President, Dr. Enrique Ruspini is running, in the IEEE Annual Election that is currently under way, for the position of Division X Director.  Enrique has provided many services to our society, starting in 1993, when he was General Chair of two of our major conferences (FUZZ-IEEE’ 93 and ICNN’93) to his most recent efforts in the past year that led to the transition of the Neural Network Council to the Neural Networks Society.

I believe that, as Division X Director, he will continue to foster the growth of the NNS.  More importantly, however, he will facilitate the collaboration between NNS and our sister societies within Division X, leading to new opportunities for joint educational products and services.

Therefore, I strongly endorse his candidacy for Division X Director and I suggest that you visit his site at http://www.ai.sri.com/~ruspini/ieeedivx.html to further acquaint yourself with Enrique’s position and goals and to provide him with feedback and comments on issues of importance to the NNS and the IEEE.

Sincerely

Dr. Piero P. Bonissone
President

Exclusive Benefits for NNS Members

=====================================================
Baseline Membership Fee:  $10.00
NNS membership will be a requirement to participate to many NNS-sponsored activities.  In particular, only NNS members can
   o Participate to IEEE NNS governance activities, such as nominate AdCom members, vote for AdCom members, be nominated as AdCom member, etc.
   o Be eligible for any IEEE NNS-sponsored technical and educational activity
   o Be eligible for any IEEE NNS grants, such as student travel grants, student summer research grants, special courses, etc.

Additional Yearly Benefits for NNS Members
   o Printed version of NNS Newsletter
   o The NNS is a sponsoring society of the § Transactions of NanoBioscience and § Transaction of Nanotechnology (agreement to be finalized by Dec. 2002)
Therefore, NNS members can subscribe to each of these transactions at a special discounted rate.

Special (one-time) 2003 Benefits
   o A free CD of the proceedings of WCCI 2002 will be distributed to NNS members with 2nd issue of Newsletter

 Future Benefits
   o We are negotiating with non-IEEE publishers of journals covering Computational Intelligence related topics to allow NNS members to subscribe to these journals at a discounted personal subscription rate – more details to follow later this year.
=====================================================
Baseline Membership Fee +  $15.00
For an additional fee of $15.00 NNS members can opt for an Electronic Member subscription to ALL PAST and CURRENT Computation Intelligence transactions:
   o Transactions Neural Networks (TNN)
   o Transactions Fuzzy Systems (TFS)
   o Transaction Evolutionary Computation (TEC)
=====================================================
Baseline Membership Fee +  $50.00
For those NNS members who prefer the paper version of the Computational Intelligence package, for an additional of $50.00 NNS can opt for a Paper
Member subscription to the Computational Intelligence Package, which includes ALL CURRENT transactions:
   o Transactions Neural Networks (TNN)
   o Transactions Fuzzy Systems (TFS)
   o Transaction Evolutionary Computation (TEC)
=====================================================
NNS Transactions (paper versions)
NNS members can subscribe to the paper version of each NNS sponsored transaction (TNN, TFS, TEC) at the same interdisciplinary rate as other IEEE members.

2002 AdCOM Minutes (download pdf version)

IEEE NNS Administrative Committee (ADCOM)
Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii
Sunday, 12 May 2002

Voting Members in Attendance:
NNS ExCom:
President Piero P. Bonissone
President Elect Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou
Past President Enrique H. Ruspini
VP Conferences Marios M. Polycarpou
VP Publications Tzyh-Jong Tarn
VP Finance Bogdan M. Wilamowski
VP Technical Activities Mohamed El-Sharkawi

Society Representatives:
Circuits & Systems Allen R. Stubberud; Majid Ahmadi
Computer Benjamin Wah
Control Systems Jerry Mendel
EMBS Charles Robinson; Donna Hudson
Industrial Electronics Olyay Kaynak; Aleksander Malinowski
Industrial Applications Dierk Schroeder; Alfonsi Consi
Instrumentation and Measurement Vincenzo Piuri
Power Engineering Robert Marks; Dagmar Niebur
Robotics and Automation Toshio Fukuda; Max Meng
Signal Processing Shigeru Katagiri; Jose Principe
Systems, Man, and Cybernetics George G. Lendaris; Lawrence Hall

Non-Voting Members in Attendance:
Editor-in-Chief, Transactions on Evolutionary Comp David Fogel
Editor-in-Chief, Transactions on Fuzzy Systems Jim Keller
Editor-in-Chief, Transactions on Neural Networks Jacek Zurada
NNS Electronic Newsletter Editor TC Chair NN Gary Yen
NNS Home Page Tomasz Cholewo
SC Chair, Awards Committee Mary Lou Padgett
SC Chair, Educational Activities Committee Slawo Wesolkowski
TC Chair, Evolutionary Computation Committee Xin Yao
TC Chair, Financial Engineering Lei Xu
TC Chair, Fuzzy Systems Valerie Cross
Secretary Ann Johnston

The meeting was called to order by Piero Bonissone at 9:15AM.  Bonissone welcomed everyone, shared general announcements, and moved on to the agenda.

Motion Move to accept consent agent
Vote In Favor  - All

Motion  Move to adopt the agenda
Vote In Favor   - All

Review and Adoption of Minutes

Motion  Move to accept minutes
Vote In Favor  - All

President – Piero Bonissone

Bonissone presented a chronology of the transition plan for the NNC to becoming a society in 2002 (summary was included in the Adcom Book).

Bonissone reported that the NNS Excom had unanimously approved renaming the student summer grants after Walter Karlpus.  Everyone in the room agreed with this change.  Bonissone will notify Mrs. Karlpus of the change.

Bonissone presented the Transition Plan for Adcom
§ Representation for Societies
§ Future Plan
§ Newsletter
§ Membership Development

Past-President – Enrique Ruspini

Ruspini presented an overview of the TAB Publications Review held in June 2001.

The Publication Review Committees (PRC) commended the NNS in the following categories:
§ Publication quality / significance
§ Editorial Practices

PRC Recommendations:
§ Increase subscriber based
§ Eliminate brief papers OR put a page limitation on the page count.

Constitution & Bylaws

Ruspini presented the proposed amendments to NNS Bylaws as listed in the Adcom book.  Charles Robinson pointed out a few typos that should be corrected.  The corrections were noted and will be changed.

Motion Move to accept and adopt the proposed amendments to the bylaws as presented in the Adcom book.
Vote In Favor  - All

Ruspini presented the proposed transition plan for section 15.1 of the bylaws.

Committee Motion Move to adopt the transition plan as outlined in the Adcom book
Vote  In Favor - All

Ruspini pointed out that the amendment listed in the book for bylaws section 7.0 is being withdrawn.

Motion  Move to table indefinitely the 2 amendments listed in the book for section 7.0
Vote In Favor  - All

President Elect – Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou

Micheli-Tzanakou highlighted the President-Elect presentation included in the NNS Adcom Book.

Micheli-Tzanakou presented an overview of the IEEE Awards Program.

Micheli-Tzanakou presented the following motion that was approved and passed in the Excom meeting on 11 May 2002.

Motion The Neural Network Society fund an IEEE level technical field award and budgets $23,000 for FY 03 and commits $13,000 for the next 10 years.

Charles Robinson questioned the motion.  He likes the idea of the motion but would like to review award descriptions.

Robinson moves to approve “in principle” but requested that Adcom review the final details.

Bob Marks asked about the procedures of email votes.  Ruspini reported the IEEE would like to remove allowing email votes from the bylaws because there was no flexibility for voting debates.

Slawo shared a similar problem from Region 7, that unless a vote was unanimous, the vote was invalid until discussions could be conducted.

Jerry Mendel spoke against the motion from Charles Robinson.  He pointed out that the society should have technical field awards and the details could be worked out.

Micheli-Tzanakou shared that the award is at the Institute level.

Ruspini reported the NNS Policy passed by IEEE on E-Mail votes.

Committees of the Neural Networks Council may vote on matters before the committee by email where, in the opinion of the Committee’s Chair, matters requiring action can be adequately handled in that manner.  All voting members of the committee are to be notified of any such proposed action.  The email vote shall provide for three voting alternatives: approve, not approve, and defer to the next meeting.  If none of the later alternatives receives a majority of eligible voting members of the committee, the one with the least vote will be dropped until one of the remaining alternatives receives a majority.  If majority of voting members of the committee is not achieved, the matter will be referred to the next committee meeting.  In no event, shall the period allowed for email vote be less than two weeks.

George Lendaris pointed out that this should be an eligible voting member

Motion Vote on Amendment that the motion is voted on “in principle” only and the details are voted by email.
Vote In favor - 8 Against - 7 Abstain –7
 

Motion Vote on Amended motion where we are voting in principle and the details will be circulated by email and the final details are voted by email.
Vote In favor – All

Break 10:30 – 10:40

Vice President, Finance – Dan Wilamowski

Wilamowski presented the financial report for the NNS (see NNS Adcom Book).

Wilamowski lead a discussion on the FinCom procedures.

Donna Hudson from EMBS reported their budget was submitted without the IEEE charge.

Ben Wah reported that after an audit, an RFP is being generated for proposals for a central audit of IEEE with the goal of reducing expenses.

Charles Robinson spoke as a representative of the EMBS and as a representative of the FinCom.  He reported that IEEE lost $20 million from reserve holdings in 2001-2002.  As a result, many policies have been established to track spending.  He acknowledged everyone is going through “tough times.”  IEEE is suffering from the abuse of past over spending.   He also reported that there would be no spending of reserves by the IEEE.

Wilamowski continued to present the NNS budget for 2003.

Lawrence Hall asked what is included in the $10.00 new member fee that has been included in the NNS 2003 budget.
Bonissone reported on the additional benefit from the $10.00 fee.  Robinson questioned what the projected expenses for the society would be for processing memberships.  Wilamowski reported the newsletter runs $7.00 per member ($9.00 in Canada).  Overall, each member costs NNS $60.00.

Ben Wah asked if we have included the allocation from the TAB meeting held in the end of April.  Wilamowski reported that he had received email on 10 May 2002 but at this time we can not adjust the budget as being presented.  IEEE will review the budget and adjust appropriately.  Wah shared that in 2003 over half the IEEE societies will be operating in the red.

Discussion Called Robinson called the question.
  The call was seconded and there were no objections

Motion Vote to approve the motion budget as presented by Dan.
Vote In favor – All

Nominations and Elections

Ruspini presented an overview of the NNS Presidential Rotation of the Past-President, President, and President-Elect.

There being no further discussions on the rotation policy, the election process continued.

President-Elect (3 year term)
The candidates nominated by the Nominations Committee for the position of President-elect is as follows:

 Jacek Zurada

Nominations were requested from the floor.

Robert Marks nominated Toshi Fukuda
Dagmar Niebur seconded the motion

Further nominations were requested from the floor for the candidate to the position of President-Elect.

Motion Micheli-Tzanakou moved to close nominations for this President-Elect.
Seconded by Marios Polycarpou
Vote In favor – All

Candidates (Fukuda and Zurada) presented short (5 minute) statements supporting their candidacy.

Vice President, Finance (2 year term)

The candidate nominated by the Nominations Committee for the position of Vice President, Finance is as follows:

 Bogdan M. Wilamowski

Nominations were requested from the floor – Benjamin Wah nominated Max Meng, The nomination was seconded by Tarn.

Motion Micheli-Tzanakou moved to close nominations.
Vote In favor – 21  Opposed - 1  Abstain - 0

Candidates (Wilamowski and Meng) presented short (5 minute) statements supporting their candidacy.

Vice President, Publications (2 year term)

The candidate nominated by the Nomination Committee for the position of Vice President, Publications is as follows:

 David Fogel

Nominations were requested from the floor.  There being no nominations, Tarn moved to close nominations, seconded by Donna Hudson.

Vice President, Member Activities

The candidates nominated by the Nomination Committee for the position of Vice President, Member Activities are as follows:

 Charles Robinson
 Tzyh-Jong Tarn
 Vincenzo Piuri

Nominations were requested from the floor.  None were offered.

Motion Larry Hall moved to close nominations, seconded by Donna Hudson
Vote In Favor – All

Candidates (Robinson, Tarn and Piuri) presented short (5 minute) statements supporting their candidacy.

AdCom - Adjourned for lunch at 12:15 PM

AdCom was called back to order at 1:15 PM

Motion Charles Robinson motioned to move to Executive Session
 for discussions on the President-elect candidates at 1:20PM
Vote In Favor - All

Ballots were distributed and counted for President-Elect.

 Jacek Zurada was elected NNS President-Elect

Motion  All election ballots to be destroyed after the election.
Vote In Favor - All

Ballots were distributed and counted for Vice President, Finance.

 Dan Wilamowski was elected NNS Vice President, Finance

Robinson moved that David Fogel be nominated by acclimation to the position of Vice President, Publications.  Seconded by all, Passed unanimously.

 David Fogel was elected NNS Vice President, Publications

Ballots were distributed and counted for Vice President, Member Activities

 Vincenzo Piuri was elected NNS Vice President, Member Activities

Motion Move to get out of Executive Session 1:58PM
Vote In Favor  - All  Opposed - None

Bonissone shared the elections results with all and expressed congratulations to each candidate.

Vice President, Conferences – Marios Polycarpou

Polycarpou presented an update on the status of all conferences being finalized and coordinated in the NNS.

IJCNN Conferences
David Fogel presented an overview on the status of the WCCI 02.
Don Wunsch shared the poster and dates July 20-24 for IJCNN 03 to be held in Portland, Oregon.  The web will be updated in the next few months.
A status on the following conference was reported:
§ IJCNN 04 – Approval was given at AdCom 2001 for the 2004 IJCNN.  The committee met 10 May 2002 and is presenting the following motion:

Motion To approve revised DRAFT budget for 2004 IEEE International Joint Conference on Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems to be held in Budapest, Hungary.  The results should be presented to Excom within 60 days.
Vote - In Favor - All

§ IJCNN 2005 will be organized by INNS.
§ WCCI 2006 will be organized and held on the Continental USA. Jerry Mendel suggested Las Vegas as a site location.
§ IJCNN 2007 will be organized by INNS
§ IJCNN 2008 potential site location, Hong Kong.  Proposal ideas are encouraged.

Fuzz-IEEE
§ 2003 FUZZ-IEEE - Jim Keller presented an overview of the 2003 Fuzz-IEEE to be held in St. Louis, 25-28 May 2003.
§ 2005 2 pre-proposals have been received.
 Location:  Bangalore, India; Main Organizer: Raghu Krishnapuram
 Location: Beijing, P.R. China; Main Organizer:  Jung-Hsien Chiang
 During the conference committee meeting on 11 May 2002, everyone agreed to encourage full proposal submissions from both organizers.

CEC
The committee is presenting the following motion:

Motion To approve revised budget for 2003 IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation
Vote In Favor  - All

2004

Motion To approve 2004 IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Portland, OR with Garrison Greenwood as General Chair.
Vote In Favor - All

CIFEr
Details are the same as listed in the Adcom book.

Motion from the Technical Committee: To approve 2004 IEEE Conference on Financial Engineering to e held in New York City with Prof. Lei Xu as General Chair.  Budget and dates to be approved later.
Vote In Favor - All

Motion Charles Robinson moved that Excom be directed by Adcom to take the actions necessary to close CIFEr 2000.
Vote In Favor - All

VIMS
Details are the same as listed in the Adcom book

In-Cooperation Conferences
Details are the same as listed in the Adcom book

The NNS conference committee is working on coordinating the following issues:
* Conference Organization:
 - Procedures
 - Recruitment of volunteers
 - Memory/Learning of the system
* “In cooperation” conferences: establish criteria for approval.

In addition, the NNS conference organization book is being updated to help conference coordinators when planning conferences.

Break – 3:05 – 3:23

Vice President, Publications – Tzyh-John Tarn

Tarn presented the publications activity report as published in the Adcom Meeting book.  Tarn reported that the 3 NNS technical transactions have received high comments.

Tarn reported the NNS BBP Income
1999 $68,075
2000 $ -  283
2001 $130,997

Editor, Reports

IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks Jacek Zurada

In addition to Zurada’s report in the Adcom book, he reported on the changes in TNN.
TNN = Editor-in-Chief + The Editorial Board
§ Handling all incoming Papers and Letters, etc.

Most important changes in TNN
§ Briefs discontinued
§ Galley Proofs are emailed in PDF
§ Web-based submissions of all PDF opened as of January 1; most credit goes to Webmaster, Dr. Tom Cholewo
§ New MS handling procedures in operation
-  email distribution of papers

The impact to date is as follows:
Submissions up 28%
Production costs $318K
Income up by 100K
First-pass rejection is at 41%

IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems – Jim Keller

Jim Keller’s presentation is included in the NNS AdCom book.

Motion Charles Robinson moves to increase the page count to 904
 For the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems
Vote In Favor - All

IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation – David Fogel

David Fogel presented the following status of the TEC
*  February and April issued published on time
*  June issue in production
- Special issue on artificial immune systems
*  August issue set
- Special section on ant colony system
*  12-14 papers in the cue.
Miscellaneous issues
*  Page budget set at 640 pp/year, six issues
*  Based on current submission rate and special issues planned, page budget is appropriate.
*  Special issues planned on particle swamr optimization, multi-criteria evolutionary optimization, evolutionary computation and data mining
*  Status appears well suited for 2003
* Review situation near the end of 2002
EIC Transition - Xin Yao met with Fogel in La Jolla to go over transition plan
*  Transition plan is for Fogel to complete the papers that have been submitted to Fogel.
- New papers go to Yao
* Expectation of Fogel that he will complete papers by October

Motion Zurada moved to thank David for his had work and dedication.
Vote In Favor - All

NNS Newsletter – Gary Yen

Gary Yen presented the infrastructure of the Newsletter, which is to facilitate the NNS production process. An overview of the NNS Newsletter / Communications goal is as follows:
* Distribution Channels
- NNS sponsored conferences
- NNS publications subscribers
* Technical flavor
- Survey articles on “quantum computing,” “Bioinformatics,” “swarm intelligence,” and “financial engineering
* Survey Tidbits
- Conference calendars
- Committee minutes

NNS Home Page – Tomasz Cholewo

Tomasz Cholewo’s presentation is included in the NNS AdCom book.

T.J. expressed thanks to all editors for their hard work this past year.
Piero thanked T.J. for his work and dedication.

Vice president, Technical Activities – Mohamed El-Sharkawi

Mohamed presented an overview of the proposal for restructuring the Technical Activities Committee.  The proposal was presented to Excom and was well received.

Technical Activities Committee (TAC) Mission

TAC ensures active and healthy technical activities programs that operate in the best interest of the members and contribute to the overall technical growth and vitality of the NNS.

TAC General Role
TAC Assists
· Vice President for Technical Activities
· Technical Committee chairs
· Standing committees’ chairs
In providing technical leadership, and in organizing technical activities.

Structure for the Technical Activities: TCs

    VP for TA
    |
    TAC
    |
 TC1:NN TC: Fuzzy TC3: EC TC4: CV TC5: ET …
Gary Yen Valerie Cross Xin Yao Lei Xu Jim Bezdek

Structure for Technical Activities: Standing Committees

    VP for TA
    |
    TAC
    |
 Publications Meetings Products Chapters Standards

TAC Assistance to TCs
TAC Role
· TAC will encourage TCs with common technical interests and overlapping scopes to sponsor joint technical activities, such as workshops, symposia, and newsletters.
· TAC will provide an effective interface between TC's and other programs or committees within the NNS -- publications, chapters, conferences, tutorials, etc.
· TAC will promote cooperation and joint technical activities between the TCs and communities inside and outside the IEEE.
· TAC will assist TC Chairs in recognizing and nominating outstanding technical leaders for awards.

Evaluation and Operation
· TAC periodically examines the scope and vitality of each TC's.
· TAC will recommend changes to the scopes or activities of the TCs when deemed necessary.
· TAC will recommend creation, termination or merging of TCs.
· Each TC Chair will submit an Annual Report. The report will detail
- Technical activities for the past year
- TC's operating plan for the next year.
· TAC will review the proposed operating plan in order to assist TC Chairs defining adequate and realistic technical programs.
· Once a plan is approved by the Vice President for Technical Activities, it will be presented to the ExCom and Adcom for discussions and modifications.

TAC Assistance to Standing Committees
TAC Role
· Coordinate the activities of various committees such as chapters, Standards, etc.
· TAC will recommend the creation, modification or elimination of these committees based on needs and activities.

TAC Meetings
TAC will meet at least once a year, normally in conjunction with a major NNS conference. Other meetings can be scheduled as needed.

TAC Membership
· The Vice President for Technical Activities will chair TAC.
· The chairs of TCs are members of TAC
· The total number of members is 8(?) plus the VP for TA.
· These members will be appointed by the Vice President for Technical Activities.

TAC Officers
· Vice Chair: The Vice Chair acts as the second in command to the Vice President for Technical Activities. The Vice Chair:
- Participates in setting TAC goals and planning TAC activities.
- Contributes to ongoing TAC activities.
- Performs special functions, such as surveying of TC activities.
- Monitor vitality of TCs and encourage activities that improve TC activities.

· TAC Secretary: The TAC Secretary will attend all meetings of TAC, takes minutes, and distributes them in a timely manner.
- The TAC Secretary keeps the TAC address list up-to-date, and distributes updated lists with the TAC minutes or at TAC meetings.
- The TAC secretary develops and updates a web site for TAC.
- The TAC Secretary supports TAC in achieving its general objectives and performs special projects as necessary.

The committee presented a motion to approve the establishment of the standing committee

Enrique Ruspini reported his interpretation of the bylaws in section 8.8 that they can be established as needed.

Piero Bonissone ruled with Enrique Ruspini’s interpretation.
George Lendaris read section 8.8 of the bylaws that the interpretation is correct.

Committee Motion Approve the establishment of Technical Activities standing committee
Vote In favor – All

Neural Network Technical Committee Report, Gary Yen
Yen reported on the following categories (for more details see the NNS Adcom book):
§ Infrastructure Building – New members have been recruited.  In 2003 the committee will invite NNTC members to publicize their “vision” statement in chosen areas.
§ Award Nominations – 12 Pioneer Award nominations were received, 3 papers were nominated for Best Paper.
§ Future Plans – Nominations are being solicited for 2004 Pioneer Award & TNN Best Paper.  They will continue to promote nominations of IEEE Fellows within the community, continue to work with students to promote the NNS Summer research Scholarship Program.
§ NNS Newsletter Related Issues – Plans are being made to stimulate more submissions.
§ Better IJCNN Organization – Work closely with IJCNN ’03 to improve the quality of presentations through invited sessions, panel discussions, and tutorial workshops.

Fuzzy Systems Technical Committee, Valerie Cross
Valerie Cross reported on the following
§ 2001-2002 Committee Members
§ Conference Activities
o International Fuzzy Systems Conference 2001
o International Fuzzy Systems Conference 2002
o Attendance at the 2001 IFSA/NAFIPS Conference
o IEEE NNS Conference Committee
§ Award Nominations
§ Future Activities
o Award Procedures
o Web Site
o Conferences
o Newsletter
o Travel
For additional details, see the Adcom meeting book.

Evolutionary Computation Technical Committee, Xin Yao
Yao reported on the membership of the committee.  The members represent diverse geographical regions and they are experienced with the Evolutionary Programming Society and the IEE.
Finance Technical Committee, Lei Xu

Lei Xu reported on the following:
§ 2003 CIFER
§ IDEAL’02
Lei Xu distributed the Call for Papers flyer for CIFEr2003.

Division X Director, Toshio Fukuda

Toshio Fukuda presented a summary on the status of Division X of IEEE.

Standing Committee Reports - Awards
MaryLou thanked the AdCom for their timely email voting for the 2003 Awards nominations.

Committee Motion:
 Ruspini moved to increase the Pioneer Awards to $2,000 effective in 2004.
Vote In Favor – All

Charles Robinson questioned the effective date of 2004.
Toshi Fukuda asked if it was included in the 2003 budget.

Motion Amended motion effective 2003
Vote In Favor - All

Motion Increase the Pioneer Award budget to $6,000
Vote In Favor 21  Against 0  Abstain 1

Committee Motion
 To rename the summer student grant program after Walter Karlpus.
Vote In Favor – All

Donna Hudson requested we communicate the renaming of the student grant program with UCLA.

MaryLou thanked the committee members for the Awards Committee.

Education Committee Report, Slawo Wesolkowski

In 2002, the committee awarded 120 student travel grants (175 applicants)
$150 registration plus 5 nights in a shared room
 The award winners will be recognized at the banquet.

3 summer research grant recipients were awarded (6 applicants)

Distinguished Lecturers, Toshio Fukuda

Toshio Fukuda distributed an overview of the IEEE Distinguished Lecture Program.  Attached to the minutes (attachment A), is point of contact information and the speaker expense policy.

List of Speakers 2002
Jim Bezdek
Topic:  Neural Networks, Pattern Recognition, and Intelligence; Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic; Fuzzy Logic, Pattern Recognition and Control
John Caulfield
Topic:  Fuzzy Metrology; Artificial Perception; Neural networks in syntactic pattern recognition
Russell C. Eberhart
Topic:  Biomedical Applications of Neural Networks; Engineering Solutions with Computational Intelligence
Rolf Eckmiller
Topic: Neural Networks for Motor Control in Primates and Robots; Neural Networks for Control, Prediction and Forecasting; Chaotic Systems; Towards Stable International Cooperation in the Field of New Information Processing Technology
David Fogel
Topic: Evolutionary Computation
Toshio Fukuda
Topic: Intelligent Robotic System; Adaptation, Learning and Evolution; Human Adaptive Interface
Kaoru Hirota
Topic: Fuzzy Intelligent System; Fuzzy Multimedia; Fuzzy Vision System
James Keller
Topic: It's OK to Tell Dad That You're a Fuzzy Thinker: Introduction to Fuzzy Set Theory and Fuzzy Logic; Fractal Geometry in Image Processing and Computer Vision; Fuzzy Logic in Image Processing and Computer Vision
Clifford Lau
Topic:  Neural Networks on a Chip
George Lendaris
Topic:  To be announced
Robert Marks
Topic:  Query-Based Learning; Heisenberg's Fuzzy Principle
Harold Szu
Topic: Unsupervised Learning & Applications in Multispectral Remote Sensing & Breast Imaging; Blind Source Separation Single User N-to-1 Powerline Surveillance; MEMS Intelligent Sensors for Urban Defense; Fast Simulated Annealing Cauchy Machine
Zbigniew Michaelewicz
Topic: Profit Optimization for Financial Service Institutions
Gancho Vachkov
Topic: Intelligent Control, Identification and Adaptation; Learning of Fuzzy Modeling; Fuzzy Cause-Effect Relation and Diagnosis
Paul Werbos
Topic:  Intelligent Control; Neural Networks for System Identification; Backpropogation; History and Prospects of Neural Networks
Lofti Zadeh
Topic:  Fuzzy Logic: Principles, Applications and Perspectives; The Calculus of Fuzzy If-Then Rules
Jacek Zurada
Topic:  Supervised Learning; Neural Networks
Kumpati Narendra
Topic: Intelligent Control
Enrique Ruspini
Topic: Qualitative Description and Analysis of Complex Objects; Reactive Control of Distributed Teams of Autonomous Rots

Multimedia Tutorials, Mohamed El-Sharkawi

El-Sharkawi reported on the NNS tutorial procedures.  IEEE has changed policies and as a society we can utilize their services for a fee.  A candidate (volunteer) has come forward, and Dogmar Niebur will be the committee chair.

Mike Smith, representing the SMC applauds all the NNS volunteers who are working hard for their society.

Charles Robinson moves to applaud the Excom President and officers.
Seconded by George Lendaris
Piero asked for a round of applause for the dedicated work by Enrique Ruspini.

Piero asked everyone to encourage nominations next year for the vacant positions.

Old Business

 NONE

New Business

 NONE

Motion  to Adjourn the 2002 NNS Adcom Meeting
Vote In Favor – All

The meeting was adjourned at 5:24 PM.

Call for IEEE Fellows Nominations

The IEEE Bylaws define the Fellow grade as one of unusual distinction in the profession, to be conferred only by invitation of the Board of Directors upon a person of
outstanding and extraordinary qualifications and experience in IEEE designated fields (including electrical engineering, electronics, computer engineering and computer
sciences, and the allied branches of engineering and related arts and sciences), who has made important individual contributions to one or more of these fields. A
nominee must be a Senior Member of the Institute, and have been a member in any grade for at least five years prior to January 1 of the year of election.

The Fellow Committee acts as a guardian of IEEE Fellow grade standards and works carefully and faithfully to maintain these standards uniformly throughout the IEEE.
In the performance of its duties, the Committee is concerned with determining whether the applicants meet the requirements of the IEEE Bylaws and it seeks assistance
from many sources in adjudicating the nominations.

The Fellow Committee depends upon the Society evaluations of the technical contributions of the candidates, and their ranking of the candidates.

The Fellow Committee depends upon the Fellow grade references who feel qualified to comment on and judge the candidate's specific technical achievements with
which they are familiar.

The Fellow Committee will consider brief letters of endorsement from IEEE Sections, Chapters and Committees. In the processing by the Fellow Committee, the
candidate's dossiers are evaluated on a basis of eight criteria:

   1. Individual contributions as engineer; scientist, originator, technical leader, or educator;
   2. Evaluation by an IEEE Society;
   3. Tangible and verifiable evidence of technical accomplishment, such as technical publications, patents, reports or published descriptions of products, facilities,
     and/or service;
   4. Opinions of confidential Fellow references who know of the work of the candidate personally (where possible, these should be associated with other than
     candidate's own organization);
   5. Service to IEEE and its predecessors, the AIEE or IRE;
   6. Professional engineering service other than the IEEE;
   7. Opinions of endorsers; and
   8. Total years in the profession.

Having considered all of the valuable information supplied from these many sources, a consensus of Committee judgements is reached on the nominees to be
recommended to the Board of Directors for elevation to the IEEE Fellow grade taking into account the maximum number of recommendations permitted by the IEEE
Bylaws which can be submitted annually.

Please refers to more information provided at IEEE Fellow Nomination Page.

2002 NNS Awards Report

2002 NN Pioneer Terrence J. Sejnowski
Terrence Sejnowski was a neural network pioneer in many ways. He was the co-inventor of the Boltzmann machine, a new type of artificial neural network. With Geoffrey Hinton he demonstrated that the Boltzmann machine could learn higher-order predicates by training from examples and could generalize to new inputs. In its unsupervised form, the Boltzmann machine can extract higher-order structure from complex datasets. In the late 1970s when Sejnowski began working on neural network theory, there were only a few neural systems for which learning algorithms were known, Frank Rosenblatt's perceptron and Bernard Widrow's adaline. But these were feedforward networks with only one layer of weights between the inputs and the outputs. Sejnowski, with Geoffey Hinton, building on the pioneering work of John Hopfield, developed a new multilayered neural network system they called the Boltzmann machine and introduced a learning algorithm that was a generalization of the perceptron learning algorithm to a multilayered network. This was an important theoretical advance because it showed a deep connection between the properties of equilibrium thermodynamics and learning, an insight that served as the foundation for the highly successful theory of statistical learning. In addition the Boltzmann machine has served as an important special case in the development of graphical models and
Bayesian belief networks.

Sejnowski, with his student Charles Rosenberg, created in the early 1980's NETtalk, which applied the backpropagation learning algorithm to the domain of text-to-speech and showed that this difficult phonological problem could be actually learned from examples. NETtalk was the first large-scale demonstration of the power of supervised learning in mulitlayered neural networks. He also applied backpropagation to the prediction of protein secondary structure from the primary amino acid sequence, which improved on previous methods for nonhomologous proteins. Applied to sonar target detection, he first showed that mulitlayered neural networks were highly successful at discriminating mines from rocks lying on the sea floor. The success of this work motivated other similar applications in military problems.

Sejnowski's NETtalk, text-to-speech system, was probably one of the most influential applications of its day. Previous applications were restricted to small networks, but NETtalk had over 20,000 connection weights and was able to absorb the many rules and inconsistencies of English pronunciation. Analyzing the network, he demonstrated that known rules were discovered by the network. Furthermore, listening to the speech generated while it was being trained strongly reminded one of a child learning. NETtalk was extremely important because it brought to the attention of a wide audience a new design methodology of "custom" neural networks that was an alternative to the expensive programming solutions that had been used previously in artificial intelligence.

Sejnowski has also cowritten the very influential textbook, The Computational Brain (1992), and is the founding editor of the well-cited journal Neural Computation. He is the President of the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) Foundation that holds a highly successful annual conference and workshop for the past 10 years. He started in 1994 a series of annual Telluride Workshops on Neuromorphic Engineering.

Sejnowski is an IEEE Fellow and the recent winner of the INNS Hebb award.

2002 FS Pioneers Didier Dubois and Henri Prade

Didier Dubois and Henri Prade developed most of the foundations of formal aspects of approximate reasoning and have extensively written on the connections between fuzzy sets, probability theory, Dempster-Schaeffer belief theory, and probability.

Dubois and Prade were in the NNC fuzzy systems area from the beginning. They were program chairs of the first FUZZ-IEEE and Associate Editors of the Transactions on Fuzzy Systems from its inception to 1999. They remain on the executive advisory board of TFS.

2002 EC Pioneers: Ingo Rechenberg and Hans-Paul Schwefel

Ingo Rechenberg and Hans-Paul Schwefel are important pioneers in evolutionary computation. In 1964, at the Technical University of Berlin, Rechenber conceived of an alternative approach to optimization based on random variation and selection. Quite literally, the approach involved throwing dice to generate potential new solutions. Together with his colleague Hans-Paul Schwefel, the two collaborators developed the concept to practice and called it an "evolutionsstrategie" (or "evolution strategy") this is contrast to a hill-climbing strategy. Rechenberg was instrumental in advancing the early theory of evolutionary strategies and both Rechenberg and Schwefel pioneered the application of evolution strategies to optimize physical devices in fluid mechanics, such as a flashing nozzle, with results that surpassed conventional engineering design. Rechenberg went on to advance the well-known 1/5-rule of adjusting the step sizes in evolutionary algorithms, as well as the now-common concept of self-adaptation in evolutionary algorithms, which Schwefel made operational and analyzed mathematically. Both Rechenberg and Schwefel published important early books in evolution strategies, in 1973 and 1981, respectively. Rechenberg and Schwefel have made significant and longlasting contributions to the field of evolutionary algorithms from 1964 to 1987 (and beyond, even until today -- however the award covers efforts made at least 15 years prior).

2002 TNN Outstanding Paper

R. Eckhorn, "Neural Mechanisms of Scene Segmentation: Recordings from the Visual Cortex Suggest Basic Circuits for Linking Field Models,"
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, Volume 10, Number 3, pp. 464-479, 1999.

The premier article in the May, 1999 issue of TNN, “Neural Mechanisms of Scene Segmentation,” comes from pioneer R. Eckhorn. The incisively significant results described in this paper could provide the foundation for ten years of research by the community. Firmly based on Eckhorn’s early work, which established the foundations for study of pulse coupled neural networks, this paper extends the concepts, while continuing to link the abstracted concepts to the biological investigations undertaken by the lab. This article contains many new results, both experimental and theoretical, that support and expand his earlier research into pulse synchronization. It discusses new applications for segmentation and activity grouping via medium and far linking; the role of global recursive inhibition; how to achieve zero phase delay correlation; and several new segmentation effects, including the interactions between forced and induced synchronization. The paper moves from a discussion of experimentally observed synchronous pulse activity and its correlation with controlled visual stimuli to a description of the linking field model itself. Eckhorn has used the same basic model since its introduction in 1990: low-pass temporal filters and modulator pulse coupling generate an internal activity that drives a pulse generator. He uses a neuromime generator rather than a more conventional integrate-and-fire model. Several very significant results are presented in the paper. The first is a demonstration that modulatory coupling is more effective than additive coupling because it better separates the linking versus the nonlinking signals. Another shows a feedback effect that gives an excellent demonstration of the dynamical control (rather than chaotic behavior) obtained by PCNN’s. It gives a “snapshot” effect for input distributions, automatically sequences and time-prioritizes different inputs, and improves figure-ground separation. The most important result is a demonstration of zero-delay correlation; an experimental finding that is elegantly supported by Eckhorn’s modeling, and fully presented in this paper. Overall, it is a major extension of many of Eckhorn’s previous results and presents an elegant model for the zero-delay correlation. Enough summary material is included to provide a good review of the basic PCNN model, the Eckhorn linking field model.

2002 TFS Outstanding Paper

N.N.Karnik, J.M. Mendel and Q. Liang, "Type-2 Fuzzy Logic Systems,"
IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, Vol.7, No. 6, pp.643-658, 1999.

In the conventional fuzzy logic system framework (type-1 FLS), it is difficult to handle the uncertainty or fuzziness of the system parameters. Usually, these parameters are estimated from data, but confidence in the accuracy of these estimates is unknown. Type-2 FLS has solved this problem. It proposed a framework in which the parameters as well as their uncertainty can be precisely formulated. This is a work of fundamental importance because it brings FLS to a new dimension. The paper above is the first comprehensive paper that introduced this new fuzzy system tool to the wider public.

2002 TEC Outstanding Paper

C. Dimopoulous and A. M. S. Zalzala, "Recent Developments in Evolutionary Computation for Manufacturing Optimization: Problems, Solutions, and Comparisons," IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 93-113, 2000.

The paper 'Recent Developments in Evolutionary Computation for Manufacturing Optimization: Problems, Solutions, and Comparisons', by C. Dimopoulos and A.M.S. Zalzala, which appeared in IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 4:2, 2000, pp. 93-113, provides an excellent example of a superb review article. The paper details efforts to address several manufacturing problems, including the job-shop problem, flow-scheduling, dynamic scheduling, process planning, cellular manufacturing, assembly line optimization, and others. The review is thorough, balanced, and clear. As more practical applications of evolutionary computation are evidenced in coming years, this review paper has the potential to be of lasting value to practitioners, indicating its suitability for recognition. Over 269 references are compiled in this excellent paper.

2002 Meritorious Service Award

Walter J. Karplus

Walter was one of the best presidents of NNC and the instigator of making us a society. In his calm but firm way he let the council from a period of turmoil to better days and years and to what we became last week: A Neural Network Society. For this service and his leadership, we recognize him with the 2002 Meritorious Service Award.

2002 NNS Walter Karplus Student Summer Research Grants

The IEEE Neural Networks Society (NNS) funds scholarships for deserving graduate students who need financial support for their research during a summer period. Any student with a meritorious project is invited to apply, but scholarships will be granted only to applicants who are student members of the IEEE at the time of the grant. Each scholarship may cover expenses connected with, but not limited to:

1. summer support at their home institution for intensive work on a particular project;
2. a visit to another university, institute or research agency for collaboration with an identified researcher in the field of interest of the applicant; or
3. other expenses (such as software) that are justifiable and relevant to the research being conducted.

The field of interest of applicants is open, but should be connected with identifiable component of the NNS (neural networks, fuzzy systems, or evolutionary computation). The amount of an NNS scholarship varies from $1,000 to $4,000. We expect to award 3-5 scholarships every year. The number of scholarships is dependent on budget approval by NNS AdCOM. Renewals and continuations for a second year of summer support will be considered only if the justification for such a request is sufficiently compelling. Congratulation goes to the winners of 2002 Walter Karplus Studnet Summer Research Grants:

Zhe (Sage) Chen;
Rafael Andres Ferreyra; and
Haiming Lu.

by Slawo Wesolkowski
Chair of Educational Activities Committee

2002 NNS Student Travel Grants

The IEEE Neural Network Society Student Travel Grant Program offers a limited number of travel grants to assist IEEE Student Members presenting papers at IEEE NNS sponsored conferences. This year a total of three major conferences are currently covered by this program. Conferences for 2002 include and are restricted to:

CEC 2002 (Congress on Evolutionary Computation), May 12-17, 2002, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
IJCNN 2002 (International Joint Conference on Neural Networks), May 12-17, 2002, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
FUZZ-IEEE 2002 (International Conference on Fuzzy Systems), May 12-17, 2002, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Congratulations to those listed below on being chosen to receive an IEEE NNS student travel grant for the 2002 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence.

IJCNN 2002:
A Nayeemulla Khan; Aaron Garrett; Ahmed Aldo Faisal; Alessio Micheli; Alok Kanti Deb; Andy Song; Arpao Kelemen; Chi Kim Chow; David Edwards; Denis Batalou; Dilan Gorur; Ed Keedwell; Ganesh Venayagamoorth; Hua Nong Ting; Huajin Tang; Ioannis Kassabalidis; James Kirk; Ji He; Jianyu Li; Johathan E. Fieldsend; Josh Bongard; Jung Wook Park; Kai Chun Chiu; Lo Ming Fok; Mark Buck Suret; Mark Elshaw; Mark Wachowiak; Mark Zlochin; Markos Markou; Mike Le Pelley; Milos Manic; Muhammad Abdul Muquit; N. Vishnanathan; Nayer Wanas; Nirav Dharia; Nivedita Sumi Majumdar; Pablo Navarrete; Peter Lichodziejewski; Raheel Allauddin; Renata Smolikova; Reyad Zemouri; Reza Derakhshawi; Rui Xu; Shahidul Pramanik; Shenghuo Zhu; Sisil Kumarawadu; Sreeram Narayanan; Srinivas Mukkamala; Virginia Savova; Wen-Jing Li; Xiao Hu; Xindi Cai; Yiliu Zhang; Yixin Chen; Yong Seog Kim; Yulan Liang; Zehang Sun; Zhang Yunong

FUZZ-IEEE 2002:
Alex Chong; Andy Verkeyn; Antoaneta Serguieva; Cheng-Hsiung Chiang; David Vengerov; Fabio Gonzalez; Hiroshi Ohtake; Jian Ying Zhang; Joe Halliewll; Junaid A. Khan; Lanka Udawatta; Leila Muresan; Min Chee Choy; Moljono Widjaja; Myriam Regattieri Delgado; Phayung Meesad; Rainer Spiegel; Richard Jensen; Takashi Yamamoto; Gaku Nakai; Ying Xie; Teppei Seguchi;

CEC 2002:
Alex van Eck Conradie; Andrew Hamilton-Wright; Bo Yuan; Brian Blaha; Buthainah Al-Kazemi; Celso Ishida; Christian Blum; Dhiraj Joshi; Dong Yeon Cho; Elio Tuci; Hung Dinh Nguyen; Ioannis Safaris; Jacob Vesterstrom; Jacques Riget; Jianjun Hu; John Cartlidge; Joset Etzel; Keum-Sung Hwang; Kyung-Joong Kim; Limin Han; Markus Kaiser; Morten Lovbjerg; Naoki Matsumaru; Nareli Cruz Cortes; Nicholas Geard; Otto Wittner; Rasmus Ursem; Rene Thomsen; Ruijian Jerry Zhang; Sandra Paterlini; Sheng Yong Chen; Suihong Liang; Surya N. Singh; Sven Eklund; Verena Hafner; Wei-Chun Chang; Xiao-Feng Xie; Xiaohui Hu; Yoshiyuki Matsumura