Reliability Society Newsletter

 

Vol. 62, No. 3, August 2016

Table of Contents

Front page:


Society Events and Announcements:


Members & Chapters:

Dallas Chapter Activities:

Arizona Chapter Activities:

Denver Chapter Activities:

Boston Chapter Activities:


Links:

President's Message

Dear Reliability Society Member,

I hope you are enjoying the summer of 2016. This summer has been particularly enjoyable for me and this year I decided to do something I have not done before in my 23 year career as a university professor and administrator. I decided to take the entire three-month summer break off from all of my regular university duties: teaching, advising, administrative work, research etc. In case you have been getting my auto-reply message from my university email, I can assure you that I have not taken the summer off from IEEE, in fact, taking time off from my regular day job has allowed me to participate in IEEE activities that I would normally scramble to fit into my schedule. And I have found (not surprisingly) that being an unpaid volunteer is the best job in the world (if you can afford it). So for the last two months, among other things, I was able to attend our June conference on Prognostics and Health Management in Ottawa and our August conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security in Vienna. Our local hosts in these two amazing capital cities did a wonderful job and if you have not done this already, I highly recommend that you make plans to attend one of these conferences (and/or other conferences we sponsor) next year.

During my presidency, I have been visiting many of our 28 Reliability Society chapters, and this month I had the pleasure of visiting the Arizona RS Chapter and speaking at their summer meeting at ASU in Phoenix. Participating in your local RS chapter activities is a major benefit of being an RS member. You can learn more about your local RS chapter by visiting our website at http://rs.ieee.org/chapters.html. If there is not an RS chapter in your area, I would love to talk to you about the process for starting one.

Finally, I want to remind you that IEEE elections are currently open and I encourage you to access your ballot at www.ieee.org/elections and submit your votes. In particular, I want to bring to your attention a controversial constitutional amendment that has generated substantial debate among IEEE volunteers over the last several months. Many believe that this will substantially change how IEEE is operated, in particular it will reduce the influence the technical societies have on how the IEEE Board of Directors is composed. While I personally share the view of most society presidents who are strongly opposing the amendment, I encourage you to do your own independent research and consider all facts before casting your vote on this matter. In addition to the information available as part of the elections material itself (which by the opposing side has been claimed to be edited or censored), you can find more detailed information available at: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/election/2016_constitutional_amendment.html (a site prepared by the proposing body) and https://ieee2016blog.wordpress.com (a site prepared by opposing groups). The election process closes on October 3, 2016.

Best wishes for a continued enjoyable summer and fall season!

Christian K. Hansen, PhD
2016 Reliability Society President

From the Editor

This is the third 2016 Reliability Society newsletter and the society continues its activities for 2016. There are many chapters reporting activities this newsletter. Other technical information and articles on reliability topics are available in the quarterly Reliability Magazines on the society website and in Transactions on Reliability through IEEE eXplore. The society also continues strong sponsorship of conferences this year with many conferences listed on the website. Upcoming conference announcements are shown on the RS homepage and the “Events & Conferences” page. Proceedings for past conferences are available through IEEE eXplore.

Inputs for future newsletter issues are due in the following deadlines for input. Technical bulletins in our field of interest, committee announcements, Chapter activities, conference call for papers, etc. are needed for the newsletter.

  • Issue #1, inputs due Feb 1
  • Issue #2, inputs due May 1
  • Issue #3, inputs due Aug 1
  • Issue #4, inputs due Nov 1

I look forward to communicating society information in our topics of interest with our membership. The Newsletter is only as good as the inputs provided, so please help bring our members an outstanding Newsletter. As always, feedback and suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Lon Chase
2016 Newsletter Editor-in-Chief
l.chase@ieee.org

 

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