- Email: [email protected]
ISA transactions 50th year recognition—And some perspectives
ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
ISA Transactions journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/isatrans
Editorial
ISA transactions 50th year recognition—And some perspectives
1. Introduction ISA Transactions recently completed its 50th year as an engineering journal. From humble beginnings, ISA Transactions is now a strong international journal, and the historical articles trace the interesting evolution of techniques for control, famous names, and society trends. ISA started as the Instrument Society of America in 1945, with a focus on creating control standards for the U.S. industry. However, ISA has evolved into the International Society of Automation with a world-wide focus and representation. Paralleling the organizational changes, ISA Transactions started in 1962 as a quarterly repository of the best papers selected by the editors from ISA conferences within the U.S. Then, most articles were from industrial authors, revealing the applicability of new products. Now, ISA Transactions has grown to offer six issues per year. It also has a world-wide reputation, with most authors presenting methodology innovations from the research and development community, and each manuscript vetted with a critical review by several subject matter experts. Although the focus has shifted from devices to methodology, and although manuscripts reveal more equations; articles retain the practical and applications aspect that characterized our beginning. The growth is in both quantity and quality. The first ISA Transactions volumes contained about 30 articles and 375 pages per year, now it is nearly 90 articles and 900 pages per year. In 2000, the Impact Factor (a measure of how frequently articles are cited within a few years after by subsequent articles) was about 0.3, in 2011 it was a bit over 1.1. A decade ago the paper-based review process took about 2 years, now readers have access to fully reviewed and revised papers about 8 months after submission. In the past 5 years the number of ISA Transactions articles edownloaded by readers doubled. Quantity has more than doubled, and quality and speed have tripled. It is a success story.
2. History of technology From a historical perspective, ISA Transactions is an interesting story where its articles trace the early days of automation technology. One article from 1962 described the use of keypunch tape, a paper tape, about 1-inch wide, with holes punched into patterns that represented data or simple computer programs. Fed to a teletype machine, the data could be transmitted over telephone wires to a remote time-shared mainframe computer for processing. Results were eventually transmitted back to be noisily typed on paper, or more tape. It could take several minutes to transmit each message, and several hours for a response. But, this
was a huge advance over the time to key-punch a deck of cards, to have them courier-delivered to the mainframe operators, and a paper printout delivered back. In 1963, an article discussed the remarkable advances (speed, capacity, and noise) of magnetic tapes. Today, some ISA Transactions articles describe autonomous wireless sensor and transmission systems, representing another stage in the remarkable improvement in data fidelity, speed, capacity, power, and reliability. Early articles also represented the mechanical-pneumatic devices for controllers, square root extractors, filtering, and paper stripcharts for trend recording. To me, the internal mechanical operations of those devices are as clever, intricate, mysterious, and romantic as pendulum clocks and steam locomotives. Other articles in the early 1960s introduced the critical flow factor for valve sizing and a universal gas sizing equation for control valves. Interestingly enough, what we take for granted today as best practices in sizing and specifying control valves was introduced in the 1960s, more than a century after the period termed the industrial revolution, more than 100 years after the widespread use of control valves in steam power. In the late 1960s, articles introduced optical, spectroscopic, and radiographic methods for on-line analysis – also dating an era of significant technology advance. The late 1960s also revealed the short-lived period about the promise of analog computers, which became hybrid analogdigital in the early 1970s. Articles about analog computers lasted through the late 1970s, but the writing had been on the wall, ‘‘Digital is here. All else, move over.’’ An early article about the use of digital methods for data recording and control appeared in the 1965 issues. By the 1990s, all articles describing techniques for data processing, uncertainty, optimization, communications, safety, process analysis, and decision making had shifted to digital methods. It was in the early 1970s when I bought my first electronic calculator, and stored the sliderule I had used daily as a practicing engineer for the 3 years prior. Digital computation revolutionized all aspects of engineering. Then an explosion of techniques was revealed. In the 1999– 2005 period, articles described applications of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC), H-infinity, Linear-Quadratic Regulators (LQR), sliding mode, robust, Model Predictive Control (MPC), intelligent, sensor fusion, de-convolution, Kalman filters, fieldbus, Neural Networks (NN), Fuzzy Logic Control ( FLC), self-tuning, adaptive, Integrated Statistical Process Control (SPC), multivariable, Predictive Functional Control (PFC), wavelets, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Neuro-Fuzzy, Genetic Algorithms (GA), Internal Model Control (IMC), Markov-Chains, and more. Yes, one thing is obvious, ‘‘Digital is here,’’ and it opened the floodgates for
0019-0578/$ - see front matter & 2012 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2012.11.003
Editorial / ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
techniques that could finally be practically implemented. Many of those techniques had been conceived in the decades earlier and needed widespread computer systems and implementation credibility to permit adoption by practitioners. The new techniques also included sensor fusion, local-area data networks, tomography, genetic algorithms, pattern recognition, performance assessment, fractional order methods, Petri nets, communication packet dropouts, and many more. A dynamic matrix control article appeared in 1982, representing one of the first publications of what has become known in academic circles as MPC and in industry as Advanced Process Control (APC). In the late 1990s, ISA Transactions articles described the commercial use and promise of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic, technology that was described in test-bed situations in the late 1980s. Looking at the date of publication and the period of industrial use for these and many other techniques that were conceived within the research community, it seems that it takes about 10, or so, years from proof-of-concept to commercial product and initial industrial acceptance. It also seems that it takes about 10 years from the technology vision to the proof-ofconcept stage. I have often heard from my academic friends that ‘‘Academe is 20 years ahead of the practice.’’ However, when I look at the techniques that were invented in industry, and the timing of their widespread analysis and frequent visibility in academic publications, it is obvious that, ‘‘Industry is 20 years ahead of Academe.’’ Consider MPC/APC, today’s commercial version using the dynamic matrix to represent the multivariable process. It was conceived and developed within industry in the 1970s and commercialized in the 1980s, but it was not until the 1990s for it to be a popular topic by academic authors. So, there seems to be a 20-year gap in both directions – between when an idea is embraced by one community and when the other community widely accepts its importance. Current Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Rad writes, ‘‘This delay between the industrial and academic communities is inevitable as industry looks for immediate answers for implementation and commercialization, and academia generates ideas and theories that at the time may not be viable for implementation.’’ But, the delay hinders progress. If the separateness of the academic and industrial communities could be diminished, then good industrial practices would be taught in the classroom earlier and published in textbooks sooner. Practice relevance would steer academic creativity, and practical academic ideas would be developed to fruition at a faster pace and commercialized sooner. Human welfare would benefit at a faster pace. In seeking to balance theory and practice, ISA Transactions represents one mechanism which is seeking to bridge the academic–industry gap and contribute to rapid technology development and commercialization. Consider, for example, application areas represented in ISA Transactions, interestingly, bio-applications of sensors and control appear throughout the five decades of publications. Topics ranged from control of artificial muscles to biomedical measurement of blood pressure, to ultrasound sensors, to cell growth modeling, to tracking the Florida Manatee, to biomimetic simulation of the ultrasonic flight guidance of bats. That there are bio-application articles in ISA Transactions should not be surprising, for the scope of ISA Transactions articles has always remained wide. Throughout the 50 years, application topics related to nuclear, ocean, flight, vision, space, robotics, chemical processes, power transmission, health care, ballistics, manufacturing, and the human-machine interface (HMI). Further, the scope of techniques has also had considerable range, including spectroscopy, data reconciliation, safety, optimization laser, fault analysis, sensors, and algorithms. Additionally, ISA Transactions
3
articles introduce and discuss the tools we use including computers, networks, supervisory optimization, and calibration devices; as well as the methods for managing the control and instrument systems. The breadth of topics in the ISA Transactions articles reveals the pervasiveness of automation applications and the range of essential tools and techniques. This variety of both applications and techniques extends beyond the scope of any mainstream undergraduate engineering program, revealing the need for postgraduate specialization training in Control Systems or undergraduate programs in Automation Engineering to prepare individuals for such careers. One particular article in 1980 caught my eye, and revealed a non-technical trend – females in the workforce. In the late 1960s, it was rare to find a female student in a North American engineering program. Now Chemical Engineering programs in USA are nearly 50% female. This demographic change led to a significant increase in diversity of the workforce, and in 1980, an article in ISA Transactions was dedicated to appropriately managing the new trend in professionals. After several decades of being accustomed to strong involvement from both genders in control engineering, I had forgotten what it was like when the community was all male. Seeing the title of that article recalled the good old days and their contrast with today. I like today better.
3. Editorship and editorial trends ISA Transactions has had stable leadership from dedicated editors. A listing of Editors-in-Chief, affiliation and service periods, reveals their diversity and commitment. Loren E. Bollinger, Editor-in-Chief, Ohio State University, 1962–1966 Gerald E. Dreifke, Editor-in-Chief, St. Louis University then Union Electric Company, 1967–1989 Gerald E. Dreifke and Spencer Bloor, co-Editors-in-Chief, 1982– 1986 Parrish N Hirasaki, Advising Editor, ISA, 1990–1992 Fred Alsup, Editor, 1993 (Retired) Thomas G. Fisher, Lubrizol, Editor-in-Chief, 1994–1997 R. Russell Rhinehart, Oklahoma State University, Editor-inChief, 1998–2011 Ahmad Rad, Simon Frazer University (Canada), 2012–present The role of the editors changed with the ages. In the period from 1962 to 1968, co-editors were assigned to types of articles, with themes including measurement apparatus, data handling and computation, automatic control systems, measurement applications, and surveys and reviews. In the 1969–1976 period, content and editors represented the ISA Divisions of Test Measurement, Analysis Instrumentation, Aerospace, Biomedical Sciences, Maintenance, Power, Process Measurement and Control, Pulp and Paper, Mining and Metal, and Chemical and Petroleum. There was a return to topical issues from 1989 to 1990, with the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Fiber Optics, Batch, Manufacturing Automation Protocol, Futuristic, Programmable Logic Control (PLC), Training, Calibration, Statistical Process Control (SPC), Distributed Control System (DCS), Marketing, Safety, Environmental, Human-Machine Interface (HMI), Total Quality Management (TQM), and Measurement and Control handled by issue editors. There are several positive aspects of having such a wide scope. The journal represents a comprehensive overview of the automation field, with broad applicability and relevance, cross fertilization and stimulation, and defines the scope of control practice and
4
Editorial / ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
its techniques. However, there are negatives, too. A broad scope means that there is not strength-of-allegiance by a defined, narrow community, who publish on a single topic, which leads to higher self-citation and the consequential ‘‘Impact Factor’’. The Impact Factor has become a dominating aspect to the establishment of many academic careers, and although the value of ISA Transactions has substantially increased to a competitive level, its Impact Factor has a median value among quality journals. Consequently, ISA Transactions leaders need to continue to be cognizant of such metrics and also continue to promote the alternate quality metrics that are relevant to an applicationsoriented engineering journal. To support the editors, the Editorial Advisory Board was created in 1996, and remains today as a 12-member committee to provide advice to the editors in maintaining quality and relevance. Members have staggered 3-year terms and are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief to provide a balanced perspective of industry, academic research, and international diversity. Vic Maggioli, an original EAB member, writes, ‘‘I have been involved with process sector automation-related projects since 1953. The knowledge and guidance provided by articles in ISA Transactions has helped me stay abreast of emerging technologies and in understanding the latest best practices. Thank you.’’ Starting in 1998, ISA Transactions made a significant step toward its present role as an international research and development journal with open submissions from the community that are critically reviewed for technical content. Today, nearly 500 experts are engaged in reviewing articles and providing significant and helpful feedback to the authors. The workload has increased with the growth, and in 2005, ISA Transactions added associate editors to assist with the review process. Now six associate editors and a deputy editor support the Editor-in-Chief . The Editor-in-Chief (Ahmad Rad), Deputy Editor (Qing-Guo Wang), and six associate editors (YanQuan Chen, Rickey Dubay, Mohammad Haeri, Karlene Hoo, Jeff Peiper and Didier Theilliol), are all volunteers, and represent the countries of Canada, Singapore, USA, Iran, and France. Today’s Editorial Advisory Board members represent the countries of Venezuela, Italy, Germany, Russia, USA, Korea, China, Croatia, United Kingdom, Poland and New Zealand. See the inside front cover for a listing of their names. Preserving our theory–practice balance, half of the EAB members are from industry. All of these professionals have demonstrated significant career success, quality, balance, and commitment to ISA Transactions; and are striving to continue its relevance, quality, and growth. The main title of the publication has always been ISA Transactions, but the sub-title has changed to help place the journal within its times and content. Sub-titles have been: 1982–1984 – A Publication of the Instrument Society of America 1990–1992 – The Quarterly Journal of ISA 1993–1997 – Journal of the Instrument Society of America 1998–2011 – The Science and Engineering of Measurement and Automation 2012–present – The Journal of Automation
4. Theory and practice balance ISA Transactions sustains its commitment to balance theory and practice. The combination is important. In many journals, the theoreticians build on prior theory, and head in a direction of possibilities built upon idealizations and other possibilities, and seem to lack awareness of the impracticality of what they are analyzing. For theory to be useful to engineering applications, it
needs to be grounded in reality – not assumptions, allowances, considerations, possible realizations, admissions, ‘‘can be’’s, and such. By contrast, when papers simply show application results, they do not provide the grounding that establishes fundamental rightness or propriety or credibility for other users. Neither do they reveal implicit limitations of the application, nor details of the methodology so that it can be improved upon. For articles to be useful to both the advanced practitioner and R&D communities, authors need to reveal the underlying analysis, as well as credible experimental or simulation results. ISA Transactions guides authors to reveal both. Further, this balance has been preserved in the selection of editors, the review process, and materials and information. Explicitly acknowledging that balance, starting in 2011, manuscripts were organized into sections labeled Research and Practice. However, it is relatively easy to expand on an equation or add a new possibility to an academic exercise and rapidly generate sequential publications that increase the Impact Factor. By contrast, aiming for a substantive impact on the practice community, seeking application relevance, and requiring articles to be grounded in credible demonstrations, has a downside in the Impact Factor a valid, but limited measure of quality that controls the careers of academics. Credible demonstrations take more time than just deriving something theoretically. Even so, the growth of the Impact Factor is remarkable. Elsevier publishes ISA Transactions along with many other journals. In 2009 the impact factor for ISA Transactions made the largest relative increase of all the Elsevier journals related to measurement and control. Editor-in-Chief Rad comments, ‘‘The growth of ISA Transactions is all the more remarkable when one recognizes that 50 years ago there were only handful of journals devoted to control and automation. Now, there are numerous journals (both traditional and open-source) competing to earn respect in terms of impact factors.’’
5. Best papers In 2008, ISA Transactions initiated a best paper award for each year’s publications, to honor and promote the values of: 1. 2. 3. 4.
quality and clarity in the manuscript, degree of utility and applicability of the technique, completeness and comprehensiveness of the work, and expected impact of the work on the research, development, or practice community.
Papers from editors and editorial board members are not eligible since those 20 individuals select the best paper. The winners have been: 2011 – ‘‘An impact source localization technique for a nuclear power plant by using sensors of different types’’, volume 50, issue 1, January 2011, pp. 111–118 . The authors are YoungChul Choi, Jin-Ho Park and Kyoung-Sik Choi. The first two authors are from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and the third author is from Korea Aerospace Industries, Republic of Korea. 2010 – ‘‘Design and implementation of an automated secondary cooling system for the continuous casting of billets,’’ volume 49, issue 1, January 2010, pp. 121–129 . The authors are Subhasis Chaudhuri, Rajeev Kumar Singh, Kuntal Patwari, Susanta Majumdar, Asim Kumar Ray, Arun Kumar Singh, and Nirbhar Negoi. All authors are from the Research & Development Centre for Iron and Steel, Steel Authority of India Ltd., India.
Editorial / ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
2009 – ‘‘Model-based monitoring and fault diagnosis of fossil power plant process units using group method of handling data,’’ volume 48, issue 2, April 2009, pp. 213–219 . The authors are Fan Li, Belle R. Upadhyaya, and Lonnie A. Coffey. The first two authors are from the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, and the third author is employed by Combustion Consultants, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. 2008 – ‘‘A model-based approach to the evaluation of flameprotective garments’’, volume 47, issue 2, April 2008, pp. 198–210 . The authors are Matej Gasperin, Dani Juricic, Bojan Musizza, and Igor Mekjavic. All are from the Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Pleasingly, the authors are from a variety of countries; represent academe, laboratories/institutes, and industry; and the manuscripts cover a broad range of both applications and techniques.
6. Closing Current Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Rad writes, ‘‘ISA Transactions is now placed among premier journals in the area of automation. Reflecting back, one cannot help but be overwhelmed with the scale by which the notion of automation has changed in the last five decades. The complexity of automated systems, stringent reliability and robustness requirements, environmental and social implications, efficient use of diminishing energy resources, advanced communication networks, and unprecedented interaction of man and intelligent machines have created a labyrinth of conflicting constraints and challenges to all involved in this
5
fascinating area. ISA Transactions – the Journal of Automation with the mandate of bridging theory and practice aspires to provide a balanced and measured view of new developments in both domains through introduction of explicit research and practice sections.’’ My first association with ISA Transactions started in 1993. I was an author seeking a refereed journal with an application focus and have returned as an author several times. Looking at other articles that are published in the journal, I remain very proud to have my work appear in the Transactions – a journal with a reputation of vitality, relevance, quality, growth, and impact. The past progress was the result of many individuals, including hundreds of authors and multi-hundreds of reviewers each year, who join the editors and EAB members to volunteer significant time and effort. Staff at both ISA Headquarters and Elsevier (current publisher), and the American Institute of Physics (former publisher) have also been energetic, helpful, and a pleasure to work with. Knowing who our ISA Transactions leaders are today, I am sure that the legacy of excellence and growth will continue into the future to have impact on the development and applications of automation.
R. Russell Rhinehart n School of Chemical Engineering – 423 EN, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078-5021, USA E-mail address: [email protected] Received 14 November 2012 Available online 13 December 2012
n
Tel.: þ1 405 744 5280; fax: þ1 405 744 6338.
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
ISA Transactions journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/isatrans
Editorial
ISA transactions 50th year recognition—And some perspectives
1. Introduction ISA Transactions recently completed its 50th year as an engineering journal. From humble beginnings, ISA Transactions is now a strong international journal, and the historical articles trace the interesting evolution of techniques for control, famous names, and society trends. ISA started as the Instrument Society of America in 1945, with a focus on creating control standards for the U.S. industry. However, ISA has evolved into the International Society of Automation with a world-wide focus and representation. Paralleling the organizational changes, ISA Transactions started in 1962 as a quarterly repository of the best papers selected by the editors from ISA conferences within the U.S. Then, most articles were from industrial authors, revealing the applicability of new products. Now, ISA Transactions has grown to offer six issues per year. It also has a world-wide reputation, with most authors presenting methodology innovations from the research and development community, and each manuscript vetted with a critical review by several subject matter experts. Although the focus has shifted from devices to methodology, and although manuscripts reveal more equations; articles retain the practical and applications aspect that characterized our beginning. The growth is in both quantity and quality. The first ISA Transactions volumes contained about 30 articles and 375 pages per year, now it is nearly 90 articles and 900 pages per year. In 2000, the Impact Factor (a measure of how frequently articles are cited within a few years after by subsequent articles) was about 0.3, in 2011 it was a bit over 1.1. A decade ago the paper-based review process took about 2 years, now readers have access to fully reviewed and revised papers about 8 months after submission. In the past 5 years the number of ISA Transactions articles edownloaded by readers doubled. Quantity has more than doubled, and quality and speed have tripled. It is a success story.
2. History of technology From a historical perspective, ISA Transactions is an interesting story where its articles trace the early days of automation technology. One article from 1962 described the use of keypunch tape, a paper tape, about 1-inch wide, with holes punched into patterns that represented data or simple computer programs. Fed to a teletype machine, the data could be transmitted over telephone wires to a remote time-shared mainframe computer for processing. Results were eventually transmitted back to be noisily typed on paper, or more tape. It could take several minutes to transmit each message, and several hours for a response. But, this
was a huge advance over the time to key-punch a deck of cards, to have them courier-delivered to the mainframe operators, and a paper printout delivered back. In 1963, an article discussed the remarkable advances (speed, capacity, and noise) of magnetic tapes. Today, some ISA Transactions articles describe autonomous wireless sensor and transmission systems, representing another stage in the remarkable improvement in data fidelity, speed, capacity, power, and reliability. Early articles also represented the mechanical-pneumatic devices for controllers, square root extractors, filtering, and paper stripcharts for trend recording. To me, the internal mechanical operations of those devices are as clever, intricate, mysterious, and romantic as pendulum clocks and steam locomotives. Other articles in the early 1960s introduced the critical flow factor for valve sizing and a universal gas sizing equation for control valves. Interestingly enough, what we take for granted today as best practices in sizing and specifying control valves was introduced in the 1960s, more than a century after the period termed the industrial revolution, more than 100 years after the widespread use of control valves in steam power. In the late 1960s, articles introduced optical, spectroscopic, and radiographic methods for on-line analysis – also dating an era of significant technology advance. The late 1960s also revealed the short-lived period about the promise of analog computers, which became hybrid analogdigital in the early 1970s. Articles about analog computers lasted through the late 1970s, but the writing had been on the wall, ‘‘Digital is here. All else, move over.’’ An early article about the use of digital methods for data recording and control appeared in the 1965 issues. By the 1990s, all articles describing techniques for data processing, uncertainty, optimization, communications, safety, process analysis, and decision making had shifted to digital methods. It was in the early 1970s when I bought my first electronic calculator, and stored the sliderule I had used daily as a practicing engineer for the 3 years prior. Digital computation revolutionized all aspects of engineering. Then an explosion of techniques was revealed. In the 1999– 2005 period, articles described applications of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC), H-infinity, Linear-Quadratic Regulators (LQR), sliding mode, robust, Model Predictive Control (MPC), intelligent, sensor fusion, de-convolution, Kalman filters, fieldbus, Neural Networks (NN), Fuzzy Logic Control ( FLC), self-tuning, adaptive, Integrated Statistical Process Control (SPC), multivariable, Predictive Functional Control (PFC), wavelets, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Neuro-Fuzzy, Genetic Algorithms (GA), Internal Model Control (IMC), Markov-Chains, and more. Yes, one thing is obvious, ‘‘Digital is here,’’ and it opened the floodgates for
0019-0578/$ - see front matter & 2012 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isatra.2012.11.003
Editorial / ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
techniques that could finally be practically implemented. Many of those techniques had been conceived in the decades earlier and needed widespread computer systems and implementation credibility to permit adoption by practitioners. The new techniques also included sensor fusion, local-area data networks, tomography, genetic algorithms, pattern recognition, performance assessment, fractional order methods, Petri nets, communication packet dropouts, and many more. A dynamic matrix control article appeared in 1982, representing one of the first publications of what has become known in academic circles as MPC and in industry as Advanced Process Control (APC). In the late 1990s, ISA Transactions articles described the commercial use and promise of Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic, technology that was described in test-bed situations in the late 1980s. Looking at the date of publication and the period of industrial use for these and many other techniques that were conceived within the research community, it seems that it takes about 10, or so, years from proof-of-concept to commercial product and initial industrial acceptance. It also seems that it takes about 10 years from the technology vision to the proof-ofconcept stage. I have often heard from my academic friends that ‘‘Academe is 20 years ahead of the practice.’’ However, when I look at the techniques that were invented in industry, and the timing of their widespread analysis and frequent visibility in academic publications, it is obvious that, ‘‘Industry is 20 years ahead of Academe.’’ Consider MPC/APC, today’s commercial version using the dynamic matrix to represent the multivariable process. It was conceived and developed within industry in the 1970s and commercialized in the 1980s, but it was not until the 1990s for it to be a popular topic by academic authors. So, there seems to be a 20-year gap in both directions – between when an idea is embraced by one community and when the other community widely accepts its importance. Current Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Rad writes, ‘‘This delay between the industrial and academic communities is inevitable as industry looks for immediate answers for implementation and commercialization, and academia generates ideas and theories that at the time may not be viable for implementation.’’ But, the delay hinders progress. If the separateness of the academic and industrial communities could be diminished, then good industrial practices would be taught in the classroom earlier and published in textbooks sooner. Practice relevance would steer academic creativity, and practical academic ideas would be developed to fruition at a faster pace and commercialized sooner. Human welfare would benefit at a faster pace. In seeking to balance theory and practice, ISA Transactions represents one mechanism which is seeking to bridge the academic–industry gap and contribute to rapid technology development and commercialization. Consider, for example, application areas represented in ISA Transactions, interestingly, bio-applications of sensors and control appear throughout the five decades of publications. Topics ranged from control of artificial muscles to biomedical measurement of blood pressure, to ultrasound sensors, to cell growth modeling, to tracking the Florida Manatee, to biomimetic simulation of the ultrasonic flight guidance of bats. That there are bio-application articles in ISA Transactions should not be surprising, for the scope of ISA Transactions articles has always remained wide. Throughout the 50 years, application topics related to nuclear, ocean, flight, vision, space, robotics, chemical processes, power transmission, health care, ballistics, manufacturing, and the human-machine interface (HMI). Further, the scope of techniques has also had considerable range, including spectroscopy, data reconciliation, safety, optimization laser, fault analysis, sensors, and algorithms. Additionally, ISA Transactions
3
articles introduce and discuss the tools we use including computers, networks, supervisory optimization, and calibration devices; as well as the methods for managing the control and instrument systems. The breadth of topics in the ISA Transactions articles reveals the pervasiveness of automation applications and the range of essential tools and techniques. This variety of both applications and techniques extends beyond the scope of any mainstream undergraduate engineering program, revealing the need for postgraduate specialization training in Control Systems or undergraduate programs in Automation Engineering to prepare individuals for such careers. One particular article in 1980 caught my eye, and revealed a non-technical trend – females in the workforce. In the late 1960s, it was rare to find a female student in a North American engineering program. Now Chemical Engineering programs in USA are nearly 50% female. This demographic change led to a significant increase in diversity of the workforce, and in 1980, an article in ISA Transactions was dedicated to appropriately managing the new trend in professionals. After several decades of being accustomed to strong involvement from both genders in control engineering, I had forgotten what it was like when the community was all male. Seeing the title of that article recalled the good old days and their contrast with today. I like today better.
3. Editorship and editorial trends ISA Transactions has had stable leadership from dedicated editors. A listing of Editors-in-Chief, affiliation and service periods, reveals their diversity and commitment. Loren E. Bollinger, Editor-in-Chief, Ohio State University, 1962–1966 Gerald E. Dreifke, Editor-in-Chief, St. Louis University then Union Electric Company, 1967–1989 Gerald E. Dreifke and Spencer Bloor, co-Editors-in-Chief, 1982– 1986 Parrish N Hirasaki, Advising Editor, ISA, 1990–1992 Fred Alsup, Editor, 1993 (Retired) Thomas G. Fisher, Lubrizol, Editor-in-Chief, 1994–1997 R. Russell Rhinehart, Oklahoma State University, Editor-inChief, 1998–2011 Ahmad Rad, Simon Frazer University (Canada), 2012–present The role of the editors changed with the ages. In the period from 1962 to 1968, co-editors were assigned to types of articles, with themes including measurement apparatus, data handling and computation, automatic control systems, measurement applications, and surveys and reviews. In the 1969–1976 period, content and editors represented the ISA Divisions of Test Measurement, Analysis Instrumentation, Aerospace, Biomedical Sciences, Maintenance, Power, Process Measurement and Control, Pulp and Paper, Mining and Metal, and Chemical and Petroleum. There was a return to topical issues from 1989 to 1990, with the themes of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Fiber Optics, Batch, Manufacturing Automation Protocol, Futuristic, Programmable Logic Control (PLC), Training, Calibration, Statistical Process Control (SPC), Distributed Control System (DCS), Marketing, Safety, Environmental, Human-Machine Interface (HMI), Total Quality Management (TQM), and Measurement and Control handled by issue editors. There are several positive aspects of having such a wide scope. The journal represents a comprehensive overview of the automation field, with broad applicability and relevance, cross fertilization and stimulation, and defines the scope of control practice and
4
Editorial / ISA Transactions 52 (2013) 2–5
its techniques. However, there are negatives, too. A broad scope means that there is not strength-of-allegiance by a defined, narrow community, who publish on a single topic, which leads to higher self-citation and the consequential ‘‘Impact Factor’’. The Impact Factor has become a dominating aspect to the establishment of many academic careers, and although the value of ISA Transactions has substantially increased to a competitive level, its Impact Factor has a median value among quality journals. Consequently, ISA Transactions leaders need to continue to be cognizant of such metrics and also continue to promote the alternate quality metrics that are relevant to an applicationsoriented engineering journal. To support the editors, the Editorial Advisory Board was created in 1996, and remains today as a 12-member committee to provide advice to the editors in maintaining quality and relevance. Members have staggered 3-year terms and are appointed by the Editor-in-Chief to provide a balanced perspective of industry, academic research, and international diversity. Vic Maggioli, an original EAB member, writes, ‘‘I have been involved with process sector automation-related projects since 1953. The knowledge and guidance provided by articles in ISA Transactions has helped me stay abreast of emerging technologies and in understanding the latest best practices. Thank you.’’ Starting in 1998, ISA Transactions made a significant step toward its present role as an international research and development journal with open submissions from the community that are critically reviewed for technical content. Today, nearly 500 experts are engaged in reviewing articles and providing significant and helpful feedback to the authors. The workload has increased with the growth, and in 2005, ISA Transactions added associate editors to assist with the review process. Now six associate editors and a deputy editor support the Editor-in-Chief . The Editor-in-Chief (Ahmad Rad), Deputy Editor (Qing-Guo Wang), and six associate editors (YanQuan Chen, Rickey Dubay, Mohammad Haeri, Karlene Hoo, Jeff Peiper and Didier Theilliol), are all volunteers, and represent the countries of Canada, Singapore, USA, Iran, and France. Today’s Editorial Advisory Board members represent the countries of Venezuela, Italy, Germany, Russia, USA, Korea, China, Croatia, United Kingdom, Poland and New Zealand. See the inside front cover for a listing of their names. Preserving our theory–practice balance, half of the EAB members are from industry. All of these professionals have demonstrated significant career success, quality, balance, and commitment to ISA Transactions; and are striving to continue its relevance, quality, and growth. The main title of the publication has always been ISA Transactions, but the sub-title has changed to help place the journal within its times and content. Sub-titles have been: 1982–1984 – A Publication of the Instrument Society of America 1990–1992 – The Quarterly Journal of ISA 1993–1997 – Journal of the Instrument Society of America 1998–2011 – The Science and Engineering of Measurement and Automation 2012–present – The Journal of Automation
4. Theory and practice balance ISA Transactions sustains its commitment to balance theory and practice. The combination is important. In many journals, the theoreticians build on prior theory, and head in a direction of possibilities built upon idealizations and other possibilities, and seem to lack awareness of the impracticality of what they are analyzing. For theory to be useful to engineering applications, it
needs to be grounded in reality – not assumptions, allowances, considerations, possible realizations, admissions, ‘‘can be’’s, and such. By contrast, when papers simply show application results, they do not provide the grounding that establishes fundamental rightness or propriety or credibility for other users. Neither do they reveal implicit limitations of the application, nor details of the methodology so that it can be improved upon. For articles to be useful to both the advanced practitioner and R&D communities, authors need to reveal the underlying analysis, as well as credible experimental or simulation results. ISA Transactions guides authors to reveal both. Further, this balance has been preserved in the selection of editors, the review process, and materials and information. Explicitly acknowledging that balance, starting in 2011, manuscripts were organized into sections labeled Research and Practice. However, it is relatively easy to expand on an equation or add a new possibility to an academic exercise and rapidly generate sequential publications that increase the Impact Factor. By contrast, aiming for a substantive impact on the practice community, seeking application relevance, and requiring articles to be grounded in credible demonstrations, has a downside in the Impact Factor a valid, but limited measure of quality that controls the careers of academics. Credible demonstrations take more time than just deriving something theoretically. Even so, the growth of the Impact Factor is remarkable. Elsevier publishes ISA Transactions along with many other journals. In 2009 the impact factor for ISA Transactions made the largest relative increase of all the Elsevier journals related to measurement and control. Editor-in-Chief Rad comments, ‘‘The growth of ISA Transactions is all the more remarkable when one recognizes that 50 years ago there were only handful of journals devoted to control and automation. Now, there are numerous journals (both traditional and open-source) competing to earn respect in terms of impact factors.’’
5. Best papers In 2008, ISA Transactions initiated a best paper award for each year’s publications, to honor and promote the values of: 1. 2. 3. 4.
quality and clarity in the manuscript, degree of utility and applicability of the technique, completeness and comprehensiveness of the work, and expected impact of the work on the research, development, or practice community.
Papers from editors and editorial board members are not eligible since those 20 individuals select the best paper. The winners have been: 2011 – ‘‘An impact source localization technique for a nuclear power plant by using sensors of different types’’, volume 50, issue 1, January 2011, pp. 111–118 . The authors are YoungChul Choi, Jin-Ho Park and Kyoung-Sik Choi. The first two authors are from the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and the third author is from Korea Aerospace Industries, Republic of Korea. 2010 – ‘‘Design and implementation of an automated secondary cooling system for the continuous casting of billets,’’ volume 49, issue 1, January 2010, pp. 121–129 . The authors are Subhasis Chaudhuri, Rajeev Kumar Singh, Kuntal Patwari, Susanta Majumdar, Asim Kumar Ray, Arun Kumar Singh, and Nirbhar Negoi. All authors are from the Research & Development Centre for Iron and Steel, Steel Authority of India Ltd., India.
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2009 – ‘‘Model-based monitoring and fault diagnosis of fossil power plant process units using group method of handling data,’’ volume 48, issue 2, April 2009, pp. 213–219 . The authors are Fan Li, Belle R. Upadhyaya, and Lonnie A. Coffey. The first two authors are from the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, and the third author is employed by Combustion Consultants, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. 2008 – ‘‘A model-based approach to the evaluation of flameprotective garments’’, volume 47, issue 2, April 2008, pp. 198–210 . The authors are Matej Gasperin, Dani Juricic, Bojan Musizza, and Igor Mekjavic. All are from the Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Pleasingly, the authors are from a variety of countries; represent academe, laboratories/institutes, and industry; and the manuscripts cover a broad range of both applications and techniques.
6. Closing Current Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Rad writes, ‘‘ISA Transactions is now placed among premier journals in the area of automation. Reflecting back, one cannot help but be overwhelmed with the scale by which the notion of automation has changed in the last five decades. The complexity of automated systems, stringent reliability and robustness requirements, environmental and social implications, efficient use of diminishing energy resources, advanced communication networks, and unprecedented interaction of man and intelligent machines have created a labyrinth of conflicting constraints and challenges to all involved in this
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fascinating area. ISA Transactions – the Journal of Automation with the mandate of bridging theory and practice aspires to provide a balanced and measured view of new developments in both domains through introduction of explicit research and practice sections.’’ My first association with ISA Transactions started in 1993. I was an author seeking a refereed journal with an application focus and have returned as an author several times. Looking at other articles that are published in the journal, I remain very proud to have my work appear in the Transactions – a journal with a reputation of vitality, relevance, quality, growth, and impact. The past progress was the result of many individuals, including hundreds of authors and multi-hundreds of reviewers each year, who join the editors and EAB members to volunteer significant time and effort. Staff at both ISA Headquarters and Elsevier (current publisher), and the American Institute of Physics (former publisher) have also been energetic, helpful, and a pleasure to work with. Knowing who our ISA Transactions leaders are today, I am sure that the legacy of excellence and growth will continue into the future to have impact on the development and applications of automation.
R. Russell Rhinehart n School of Chemical Engineering – 423 EN, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078-5021, USA E-mail address: [email protected] Received 14 November 2012 Available online 13 December 2012
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