Reliability Society Newsletter

 

Vol. 59, No. 3. August 2013

President's Message



Reliability Society Members,

Hello, I hope that each of you have been enjoying the summer months and have toured additional areas plus visited relatives. June was a busy but fun time month for the Reliability Society (RS) AdCom members. The RS conducted two separate conferences held in NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), and had our ExCom and AdCom meetings between those two conferences in Gaithersburg, MD (Washington DC Metro area). Both conferences had good presenters and attendees from around the world – was fun seeing lots of people which I knew plus meeting some – new ones I enjoyed.

In Memory

Dr. Ralph Evans and Dr. Guangbin Yang have passed away, and the loss of each was sad news for us. Both were active within the Reliability Society across many years. Please read the articles for each of them within this RS Newsletter. In addition, the T-Rel Chief Editor, Way Kuo, and the T-Rel Managing Editor, Jason Rupe, are writing an article for Dr. Evans and Dr. Thad Regulinski, a former Sr. Associate Editor of T-Rel, is writing an article for Dr. Yang. Both of their articles will be in T-Rel.

IEEE EAB Award To UMd CALCE

The IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) and the IEEE Standards Association Board of Governors, respectively, voted to recognize the Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) in University of Maryland for exceptional achievements in standards education activities by awarding CALCE. Please read this article within this RS Newsletter. Dr. Michael Pecht, Director and Founder of the CALCE, chairs the Reliability Society's Standards Working Groups developing and maintaining reliability and PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) standards. I have known Dr. Pecht since before his CALCE was established. His CALCE is an excellent reliability and PHM center and has very good students and Professors, and over the years many of the CALCE students are now very good Professors at universities around the world.

Annual RS Sponsored Conferences Held

RSAMD Conference – As stated in the May RS Newsletter, our new 2013 IEEE Conference on Reliability Science for Advanced Materials and Devices (RSAMD) was held in February. This RSAMD was initiated by Carole Graas (Professor at the Colorado School of Mines and a RS AdCom elected member) and focused on reliability failure modes in a wide range of advanced devices, stimulating reflections on convergences between diverse technologies. The innovative program included both educational and in-depth presentations, from academic lectures to focused thematic and research papers. Feedback from attendees indicated that this conference constituted a much needed and valuable state. Presently, the target date of the 2014 RSAMD is planned for early September 2014.

SERE Conference – Our 2013 International Conference on Software Security and Reliability was held in June at NIST in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Washington DC Metro Area). SERE 2013 had a wide range of researchers and practitioners to present their on-going ideas, experiences, and outcomes of most recent research, and to exchange their best-of-breed practices for developing reliable, secure, and trustworthy software systems in a more effective and efficient way. It not only allows the academic community to gain an increased awareness of the areas that are vital to the software industry, but it also grants practitioners an opportunity to express their needs.

PHM Conference – Our 2013 IEEE International Conference on Prognostics and Health Management; Enhancing Safety, Efficiency, Availability, and Effectiveness of Systems through PHM Technology and Application was held on June 24-27 and was conducted at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland (Washington DC Metro Area). The conference addressed the broad range of PHM disciplines and topics including PHM Systems Engineering and Management. In addition to the wide range of PHM topics, additional features included special sessions for the IEEE Transportation Electrification Initiative, IEEE Product Safety, and IEEE Technology Management plus a face-to-face meeting of the IEEE PHM Standards Working Group. The Keynotes covered the "Integrating Intelligence into the Electronic Aircraft", presented by Brian Sartain, Vice President & General Manager of UTC Aerospace Systems, and the "Tends in the Development of PHM in China", presented by Prof Zili Wang, Dean of Reliability and Systems Engineering in Beihang University.

2014 RS Conference Management Teams Underway – Our 2014 RS Conference Management Teams are underway. If you would like to get involved and be active in developing and completing a specific Conference, plus let us know. You can contact Alfred Stevens, our RS Meeting and Conference VP, Rex Sallade for the PHM (Prognostics and Health Management) Conference, Eric Wong for the SERE (Software Security and Reliability), and Carole Graas for the RSAMD (Reliability Science for Advanced Materials and Devices) Conference, or me, Dennis Hoffman.

RS Chapter Expansion

The Reliability Society has 24 IEEE RS Chapters and you can view the Chapter locations and each Chapter´s Chair on our website (http://rs.ieee.org/chapters.html). The RS is focusing on the establishment of additional chapters so RS members can have local technical meetings / activities for member pluses. Marsha Abramo is the RS Membership VP and Loretta Arellano is the RS Chapter Coordinator, both of them aiding our RS Chapters. Dr. Mike Pecht was going to be in China a year or so ago, so I asked him to discuss and determine if there was an interest in a RS Chapter being established in their specific area. He was meeting with a Professor whom he had operated with for a number of years, and to whom he had got me in contact for other topics. His meeting did support the interest and they are in state to gain IEEE approval for their RS Chapter. Eric Wong, the RS Technical Operations VP on his visits to China, also met and discussed with this Professor along with Professors in other China areas. Jeff Voas, RS Jr. Past President, tripped with Eric several times for presentation requests by Eric and his China Professor contacts. A few months ago, Dr. Mike Pecht let me know that he had a CALCE task in Korea so I asked him to see if there was a RS Chapter interest in variations within Korea – yes, there was definite interest. Sam Keene, Past RS President, will be going to Paris per local Paris Chapter request to give a specific presentation. Based on this we asked a number of European RS people to attend also, and Marsha Abramo will give a RS Chapter establishment presentation / discussion. Marsha and Alfred Stevens, RS Meeting and Conference VP, are also reviewing some other reliability oriented European conferences to determine if they would have ways to do RS Chapter establishment We are also doing RS Chapter presentation / discussions in the US plus other countries as contacts become available. Thanks to all of the persons noted.

RS Technical Advances

Our Reliability Society wants to advance several technical areas / topics:
- Technical Committees to generally support broad reliability engineering aspects
- Training including active and passive webinars, corporate workshops / training, etc
- Topic Area Directors with each Director focused on a specific topic and know a number of contacts / experts for the topic to aid RS Officers
- Additional conferences established for each covering a specific great topic
RS members please consider and if interested in getting active within the RS organization to support RS Officers and/or AdCom members, please contact me or the specific person who you would like to be active with. Technical helpers are needed.

Reminders:

Visit our RS web site (http://rs.ieee.org) often. It is the gateway to the many resources that the RS makes available in the broad aspects of reliability. The Reliability Society can and does help create a win-win situation for you and the RS in this current dynamic, world-wide technology environment. By being active within the RS, you can interact with many of the "movers and shakers" in this broad reliability discipline.

Conference proceedings are available for access in the Reliability Digital Library (RDL). As an RS member you get complete and free access to everything in the RDL. The RDL can be accessed at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/guesthome.jsp . Sign in with your IEEE user id and password and then click on "What can I access?". Then select the IEEE Reliability Society Conference Digital Library. This will bring up links to all the conference proceedings that are available.

RS members should consider being involved at some level within the Reliability Society. Your involvement can be in your local RS Chapter, in RS Conference Management Committees, within one of the RS Officer Committees, in being a Chair or active member in a Technical Committees, in a Standards development team, etc. It is also very great for our RS members to be an author for our RS publications or LOR (Letter on Reliability). Please consider.

Thanks to each of you for your Reliability Society membership.

Best regards,

Dennis Hoffman
2013 RS President
d.hoffman@ieee.org

 

From the Editor

Summer is around in the Northern Hemisphere; hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine that the season has offered. For the friends from the Southern Hemisphere, hope the weather is not too cold this year. During this June, there were two RS conferences held in NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). Hope all the attendees had enjoyed the venue; for the audience who has missed the events, the conference proceedings should be available soon from IEEE Computer Society.

In this August issue, President Dennis Hoffman begins with sad news of lost. We are sorry to inform that two RS members, Dr. Ralph Evans and Dr. Guangbin Yang, have passed away. Please accept our sincerest condolence. As a tribute to the two outstanding researchers, members of T-Rel are writing articles regarding the two members and the articles will be available in T-Rel.

President Dennis Hoffman would also want to congratulate Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) in University of Maryland, founded and directed by Dr. Michael Pecht, for exceptional achievements in standards education activities which is awarded by the IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB).

Lastly, President Dennis Hoffman wraps up the message with a summary of annual RS sponsored conference and RS chapter expansion. RSAMD, SERE, and PHM conferences of 2013 ended with a success; we are glad to see that the given talks were outstanding and research ideas were shared amongst the attendees. Furthermore, 2014 RS Conference Management Teams are underway. Let us know if you are interested. As for RS chapter expansion, there are activities in China, Korea, Europe, the US, and other countries; we would like to thank the involved RS members for the effort of expanding RS chapter.

There are two regular articles in this issue. The first article introduces reliability-based citation impact (R-impact) factor which considers the factors of both the citation impact, and long-lasting impact of published journals as measured by the cited half-life. The second article IEEE Reliability Society Standard Status Report reports the status of five existing standards as well as the status of the two new standards. This report only gave a brief introduction of the standards; however, further information can be inquired if you are interested to find out more.

In the news, many RS members have been awarded recently. Dallas Chapter, Boston Chapter, Denver Chapter along with several distinguished chapters recently received Reliability Society Annual Chapters Award. UMD CALCE Gained IEEE Award. Professor Way Kuo, President of City U of Hong Kong, just launched his new book. Congratulations to all of them!

The Newsletter has been the society's primary media for sharing thoughts on reliability related issues and announcements of events of interest to our members. This newsletter will publish content deemed appropriate for and of interest to members of the IEEE Reliability Society and members of the reliability profession in general. Accepted content includes announcements and reports of activities sponsored by the Reliability Society including chapter meetings, workshops and conferences. Technical papers including reviews, opinions, case studies or new ideas for the reliability professional are welcomed and accepted without external review. Authors are solely responsible for the correctness of results presented and proper citation of work by others. For submissions to Prognostic Health Management (PHM) section, please contact Dr. Pradeep Lall who is the editor handling the PHM section. For further information please contact Dr. Lall.

Deadlines for submission of content:

Nov. 1 (Issue No. 4/2013)
Feb. 1 (Issue No. 1/2014)
May. 1 (Issue No. 2/2014)
Aug. 1 (Issue No. 3/2014)

I would like to thank the RS Officers, AdCom members, Chapter chairs and members at large who have contributed to this issue. I sincerely hope our members can continue sharing your thoughts through our newsletter.

If you have any suggestions or comments on the newsletter, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Sincerely,

Shiuhpyng Winston Shieh, PhD
Newsletter Editor-in-Chief

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