ACES History
This section of the website contains the history of ACES as recorded by Dr. Robert Bevensee, the ACES Historian.
The history can be accessed in one of two ways :
1) The entire history may be downloaded in one PDF file here.
2) The history may be browsed year to year
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THE HISTORY OF THE APPLIED COMPUTATIONAL ELECTROMAGNETICS SOCIETY (ACES)
1985-1994
by
Robert M. Bevensee ACES Historian
Foreword
The ACES organization began as a four-day workshop followed by several newsletters and grew into an international corporation in only five years for several crucial reasons. It filled a need among electrical engineers working in the field of electromagnetic phenomena computation and a relatively small but intensely dedicated coterie of professionals and their organizations supported the ACES’ activities. You will encounter the names of these Acesians (Acesian (A’ces’ean), a member or supporter of ACES) again and again as you read the impressive story of ACES' growth. This growth has taken ACES from its origins in California to many areas of the world. ACES' example has inspired similar electromagnetic code users groups abroad, as well as international workshops in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and South Africa.
The most serious problem ACES continually faced was the budget problem. By adroit use of organizational services and necessary increases in membership fees and Annual Review of Progress attendance fees the treasurers managed to keep ACES financially afloat. Today its many sources of income and careful budgeting should keep it financially solvent in the foreseeable future. This History emphasizes the vast number of persons and their organizations (in parentheses) who built ACES into the dynamic organization it is today.
ACES originated from a Computer Modeling/Electromagnetics Workshop, announced in a memo circulated in January and February of 1985. This memo appears in Appendix A. The primary goal of the Workshop was to initiate a forum for exchange of information about computer modeling tools like the Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC). This code had evolved from an earlier code developed at MB Associates of San Ramon, California and subsequently transferred to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, then the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory) of Livermore, California, in 1971. Since then it has been continually upgraded and improved at various facilities.
This Workshop was held at LLNL on March 19-22, 1985, with the title First Annual Review of Numerical Electromagnetics Code (NEC) Applications. It was chaired by Edmund K. Miller, then at LLNL. The first page of the program is included as Appendix B. Forty-six papers in six sessions featured authors from Australia, Canada, West Germany, Spain, and South Africa. These papers included such diverse topics as the IGUANA (Interactive Graphics; Utility for Automated NEC Analysis) Work Station, "Computer Movies", "Management Problem-How to Improve Availability of NEC Antenna Models", and "NEEDS Directions and Open Discussion". Part of one session was devoted to "Future NEC" or NEEDS (Numerical Electromagnetics Engineering Design System). The Review indicated the need for subsequent regular meetings and a publication. Initial plans called for a NEC Newsletter to be published semiannually, with NEC updates, code announcements, and user-applications notes. Later this Newsletter would become the ACES Journal, which would subsequently split into the two present-day publications, the ACES Journal and the ACES Newsletter.
Volume I, No. 1 of the Applied Computational Electromagnetics Newsletter was published in February 1986. This first issue contained an Introduction from the ACES' president, Electromagnetic (EM) Modeling Notes, and seven articles, all devoted to NEC or MININEC (a microcomputer version of NEC). In the Introduction President Edmund Miller (then at the University of Kansas) declared that the overall goal of the Newsletter was to foster information exchange among computer modelers, with electromagnetic applications favored over research and/or development ones. To promote this goal issues would include a modeling column, applications notes, code descriptions, tutorial articles, and a column devoted to news of the ACES Society.
When ACES began operations it received $40,000 from LLNL, money accumulated from sales of the NEC code. When activities transferred to Monterey, CA, this money was transferred to an account at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) there. In February, 1986, $10,000 of the fees collected by LLNL for the First Annual Review was also sent to NPS. There it would help defray expenses for the Second Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, to be held at NPS in March of 1986. This location and month proved so popular that the Annual Reviews have been held at NPS in March every year since.
ACES was officially launched on March 19, 1986, at the Second Annual Review of Progress, held at NPS on March 18-20. The Review was organized by Richard W. Adler (NPS), with help in program scheduling from Robert Bevensee (LLNL). The Constitution and Bylaws were adopted with modifications by the members at the business meeting on March 18. The first slate of officers included Edmund K. Miller, President; James C. Logan (Naval Ocean Systems Center or NOSC), Vice President; Richard W. Adler, (NPS), Secretary; and James K. Breakall (LLNL), Treasurer. The ACES Administrative Committee or ADCOM established March 19 included three Directors: Robert Bevensee for 3 years; Janet McDonald (USAISEC, Ft. Huachuca), 2 years; and Donn Campbell (Army, Ft. Monmouth), 1 year. ADCOM also included eight Associate Editors of the Newsletter and six committees. These committees and their chairmen were: Membership, Samuel Sensiper (Consultant); Software Exchange, Treasurer Breakall; Technical Activities and Long Range Planning, Arthur Ludwig (General Research Corporation); Meetings, (to be organized); Newsletter, currently functioning under the associate editors; and Constitution and Bylaws, (to be organized).
The Second Annual Review presented 43 papers in seven sessions, and the proceedings consumed 600 pages!
A memo from Secretary Adler to the prospective and current members of ACES was circulated March 20, 1986, on the subjects of membership fees and Society privileges. Membership fees of $25 per year for individuals and $75 for organizations entitled members to the 1985 and 1986 Newsletters and the Proceedings of the Second Annual Review of Progress, 1986. The memo also included the Constitution and Bylaws of ACES. The activities of ACES were brought to the attention of a number of workers in electromagnetics by Edmund Miller and Gerald Burke (LLNL) in their short course and workshop on NEC at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, during August of 1986. The course was organized by Derek McNamara (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa) and Duncan Baker (University of Pretoria, South Africa).
The Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society Newsletter, Vol. I, No. 2, November 1986, which summarized the decisions of March 18 and 19, was edited by Robert Bevensee, with the associate editors Virgil Arens (Arens Applied Electromagnetics), Ronald Marhefka (Ohio State University), R. Dawson Coblin (Lockheed Missiles and Space Co.), James Logan (NOSC), Donn Campbell, Stanley Kubina (Concordia University), and David E. Stein (U.S. Air Force).
This second issue of the Newsletter listed approximately 250 ACES members. President Miller introduced a modeling short-note format. The ACES News column announced the Third Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagneticss, to be held at NPS in March, 1987. Other items contained in this issue were: Correspondence, Modeling Notes, Pandora's Box, Computer Code Descriptions, Available Software, MININEC-3 Updates, four articles, and a list of 19 institutional members.
Theodore Roach (Microcube Corporation) launched the Available Software section and included a statement of policy about an EE (Electrical Engineering) Public Domain Software Library in Plainview, NY. R. Dawson Coblin edited Pandora's Box, which would treat unsuccessful applications of commonly used codes. Unfortunately, code users proved unwilling to confess such applications for this column. The Available Software section, edited by Donn Campbell, presented descriptions of ten computer codes furnished by Theodore Roach and James Logan in an ACES Software Form appropriate for the purpose.
On March 21, 1987, just before the Third Annual Review of Progresss, Treasurer Breakall gave a financial status report on ACES. At that time ACES funds resided in four locations: a "Computer Modeling EM Workshop" Account at LLNL, a Conference Account at NPS, a savings account, and a checking account. The balance was $27,107. Since the early financial history of a fledgling organization may be of interest to similar organizations this report is included as Appendix C.
This financial report made a "wild guess" of the 5-year projected budget through 1991. This projection allowed for the disappearance of both LLNL and NPS support. Future financing of ACES was stated as the most important action to be taken at the Third Annual Review. This Review, organized by Secretary Adler with program scheduling aid from Robert Bevensee, featured 54 papers in 8 sessions, one poster paper on IGUANA, 7 PC demonstrations, and an NEC Users Panel Discussion and a Computer Graphics Panel Discussion.
In the Vol. II, No. 1 Newsletter of May, 1987 President Miller (now at Rockwell Science Center) reported the attendance of 125 persons at the Third Annual Review, March 24-26, 1987 at NPS. There were more than 40 presentations, PC (Personal Computer) demonstrations, and panel discussions. At the business meeting Lee Corrington (USAISEC, Ft. Huachuca) was elected to ADCOM for a 3-year term, replacing Donn Campbell, whose term had expired. The number of Newsletter editors had now grown to 12, with David Stein as the new Editor-in-chief. His policy was to encourage diversification of papers into areas such as radar cross section, shielding, radiation hazards, remote sensing, and even low frequency applications, so as to promote a cross-pollination which would penetrate self-imposed "boundary conditions" between disciplines. Papers could describe computational techniques using not only integral equations solved by the method-of-moments but also diffraction theories, physical optics, modal expansions, perturbation theory, differential equations and hybrid methods-in both the time and frequency domains.
The ACES Software Library had grown, with the addition of five new items described on their ACES Software Forms. Information on other software sources was furnished by Theodore Roach.
Secretary Adler received a letter dated March 2, 1988, from Dr. Brian A. Austin (University of Liverpool), describing the outcome of a June, 1987, IEE meeting in London of those in the United Kingdom (UK) interested in computational electromagnetics-NEC and MININEC in particular. This "embryonic" organization was encouraged by the success of ACES and its Newsletter to meet annually as the NEC Users Group and to start its own Newsletter. Dr. Patricia Foster (Consultant, Microwave & Antenna Systems) extolled the virtues of ACES membership in the first issue of the NEC Users' Newsletter, published in the Spring of 1988. The first sentence of her article read "Joining ACES ....is a little like having an extra Christmas-a deluge of fat parcels arrives". She referred to the ACES Newsletters and Reviews of Progress Proceedings.
The fall of 1987 saw the appearance of Volume II, No. 2 of the ACES Journal and Newsletter, now a combined publication with peer-reviewed papers. The editors included at that time Secretary Adler as Managing Editor and Michael Thorburn (Oregon State University) as Advertising Editor, both on the staff of Editor-in-chief Stein (now with LTV Aerospace and Defense Co.). Eleven associate editors completed the Publication staff.
Two new committees were announced: Conference and Nominations.
President Miller reported that the Publications Committee revised the ACES brochure sent to prospective members. The revised version would also be sent to university electrical engineering departments, as well as persons involved with development of electromagnetic modeling codes. Editor-in-chief Stein announced the intention to publish at least one special (Thematic) issue of the ACES Journal and Newsletter each year, beginning in 1988, in addition to the two regular issues. His intent was to maintain "rapid turnaround" for regular issue contributors, while also exploiting the promotional advantages of Thematic Issues.
Chairman Roach announced a total of 12 items in the growing ACES Software Library.
Just before the Fourth Annual Review of Progress, 1988 a memo to ACES ADCOM from Treasurer Breakall and Secretary Adler dated March 14, 1988, summarized the financial status of ACES. The four funds contained a total account balance of approximately $52,960. This included expenses of about $15,500 for Conference (Review of Progress) Publications, NEEDS, Secretarial Services, and Miscellaneous. ACES had, by this time, obtained an IRS tax ID number but would not need a California tax ID if publications were sold to members only and ACES remained a nonprofit corporation.
A five-year "guessified" budget through 1992 was offered and ADCOM was urged to consider it before the NPS AND LLNL support ended before March, 1990.
The memo concluded by stating that the Articles of Incorporation were ready for signatures, after which a financial statement would be submitted to the CPA certified public accountant for incorporation.
At the Fourth Annual Review of Progress, March 22-24, 1988, in Monterey (Secretary Adler as Acting Chairman) President Miller signed the papers for application to the state of California for ACES' nonprofit status. He also announced that URSI (Union Radio Scientifique Internationale)-Commission B and the IEEE APS (Antennas and Propagation Society) would allow use of their names in a call for papers for either a special ACES Journal and Newsletter issue or for a conference.
The new slate of officers was elected by the members: James C. Logan, President; Stanley Kubina, Vice President; Richard W. Adler, Secretary; and James K. Breakall, Treasurer. The ADCOM members-at-large serving 3-year terms at that time were Robert Bevensee, whose term would expire in 1989; Lee Corrington, term to expire in 1990; and Peter Cunningham, term to expire in 1991.
The committee chairpersons appointed at the Fourth Annual Review were as follows:
Newsletter (Publications), David Stein, both Editor-in-chief and Transactions Editor,
Advertising Editor, Michael Thorburn
Meetings, Robert Noel (Rockwell International)
Long Range Planning (Technical Activities), R. Dawson Coblin.
Constitution and Bylaws, Janet McDonald
Software Exchange, Charles Vandament (Rockwell International)
Software Performance Standards (newly established), Edmund Miller
Nominations, Robert Bevensee
Awards, Lee Corrington
1989 ACES Review of Progress, Michael Thorburn
Attendance at this Annual Review increased to 166. ACES membership had grown to 453 from 189 in 1987. There were 8 sessions of 57 papers plus an Electromagnetic Code Users Panel Discussion and 10 PC demonstrations. A special demonstration of ground constant measurements was held by George
Hagn of the Stanford Research Institute, International. A questionnaire taken at this Review of Progress revealed the types of computer codes used by the attendees, and their application areas. In application areas of interest, 54 persons responded antennas; 42, scattering; 33, propagation; and 14, other areas of interest. Fifty-two respondees mentioned their model types used were based on integral equations; 28 mentioned differential equations; 32 mentioned GTD (geometrical theory of diffraction); 42, frequency domain types of codes; 22, time domain types; and others mentioned three other types. Forty-one attendees stated that one parallel session was acceptable at the Annual Reviews of Progress, while 17 declared that none were acceptable, and 14 would accept two parallel sessions. The yes/no vote in favor of poster sessions was a decisive 40/13. Thirty-seven respondees declared in favor of more PC demonstrations, compared to 14 who opposed more of them. There was an overwhelming consensus in favor of continuing the Annual Reviews of Progress at NPS during the January-March period. The response to ACES interests was revealing: 20 persons declared modeling guidelines was their primary interest, while 17 claimed software exchange and 11 claimed code validation. For their second most important interest, 18 claimed code validation; 16, solved problems library; and 15, modeling guidelines. Each of the four interest categories-software exchange, code validation, solved problems library, and modeling guidelines-was a strong third most important interest.
Volume III.1 of the Newsletter, published in the Spring of 1988, reported the following ACES news items:
A substantial West German NEEDS Users Group was operating under IABG, a government-owned, nonprofit organization and member of the German EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) Standardization Committee. That Committee was, in 1988, considering adopting NEEDS as a reference program for basic EMC numerical work. IABG would collaborate with ACES to update NEEDS in West Germany and would act as a "German Secretary" to ACES.
A NEC/MININEC User Group was being formed in the United Kingdom and an ACES connection was being pursued. This was described in the aforementioned letter of March 2, 1988, from Brian Austin to Secretary Adler.
ACES had, at that time, cooperative arrangements, not only with URSI-Commission B and the IEEE-APS, but also with the Nuclear EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) Meeting (NEM) and the IEEE EMC Society.
A call for papers was announced for a special issue of the ACES Journal and Newsletter on the subject of "Computer Code Validation", with papers due by August 31, 1988.
The number of ACES institutional members had grown to 31. Vol. III.2 of the ACES Journal and Newsletter, published the fall of 1988, listed 19 associate editors, all from domestic institutions. ACES membership then stood at 500.
The ACES Software Library had grown to contain 16 items. Charles Vandament, Chairman of the Software Exchange Committee of 18 members, reported the Committee's intention to compile a comprehensive catalogue of descriptions of all codes related to the general field of electromagnetics. The major codes at the time - NEC-MOM, NEC-BCS, GEMACS, and MININEC/NEEDS/IGUANA - each had at least one experimental user. Specialized codes for accelerators and microwave circuit design would be included in the catalogue.
In the ADCOM meeting of March, 1989, the ACES Journal and Newsletter was separated into two publications - the ACES Journal, to contain peer reviewed papers devoted to applications, and the ACES Newsletter, to present informal communications, news items, and administration matters. In one year - March 1988 to March 1989 - ACES membership had grown from 300 to more than 500. The membership fee for individuals rose to $25 in 1989.
At the Fifth Annual Review of Progress, held March 20-24, 1989 in Monterey and Chaired by Michael Thorburn, 200 persons attended and presented 70 papers in 12 sessions, and 21 papers in a poster session. No parallel sessions were necessary. This was the first Review to feature short courses{three on March 20. The Review Proceedings spanned 865 pages. The ADCOM formally adopted a 2-year budget for the first time, and ACES held its first Annual Awards Banquet. The following awards were presented: the Mainstay Award to Richard Adler, Publications and Promotions Award to Robert Bevensee, Technical Achievement Award to Gerald Burke, Founders Award to Edmund Miller, Publications and Promotions Award to David Stein, and Valued Services Award to Michael Thorburn.
The first ACES Newsletter to appear after separation from the Journal >was Vol. IV, No. 1, published June, 1989. It announced the establishment of the ACES European Committee for a period of at least one year, with Rüdiger Anders (Applied Electromagnetic Engineering, West Germany) as chairman and seven founding members, who had attended the Annual Review in March. The Committee would begin the work of establishing a formal European Chapter of ACES, serving as an \ACES Europe" Committee.
Treasurer Breakall reported total income for calendar year 1988 was $57,300; total expenses, $38,000. These compared with 1987 figures of $26,715 and $9,800, respectively. As of March 24, 1989, the estimated income for 1989 was $52,750; estimated expenses, $44,300. David Stein, Chairman of the Publications Committee, reported the decision to eliminate page charges for most papers. However, excessive length papers would incur special charges to cover the extra expense. 1989 saw the publication of the first special issue of the ACES Journal, on Electromagnetics Computer Code Validation. Stanley Kubina and David Stein were the guest editors. It featured 11 articles, with an excellent lead article entitled "Characterization , Comparison and Validation of Electromagnetic Modeling Software", by Edmund Miller (then at General Research Corporation). The ACES Newsletter of June 1989, announced a call for papers for the second special issue of the ACES Journal, devoted to Canonical Problems in Computational Electromagnetics, with Harold Sabbagh (Sabbagh Associates) as guest editor. The updated computer program NEEDS 2.0 became available, but to ACES members only, at a cost of $140 ($165 for members abroad). The ACES Software Library at this time listed 16 programs. Vol. IV.2 of the ACES Newsletter, September 1989, announced Paul Elliot (then at Georgia Tech Research Institute) as the new Newsletter editor, a non-voting position on ADCOM. Raymond Luebbers (Penn State University) replaced Robert Noel as Chairman of the Meetings Committee, which was then planning ACES Workshops to start in the fall of 1990.
Richard Adler and James Logan were installing, at this time, a new desktop publishing system, permitting more timely Newsletter deliveries.
Rüdiger Anders as Chairman of the European Committee announced plans for a First European Workshop for November 1989, in the Ulm-Stuttgart area. This would be a two-day event, with a handful of invited papers and time for the participants to share their application experiences. "Hands-on" computers from Hewlett Packard GMBH, Germany, along with major electromagnetic codes and software packages, would be provided. At the IEEE APS (Antennas and Propagation Society) International Symposium and URSI Radio Science Meeting in San Jose, June, 1989, ACES participated with the Computer Applications in ElectroMagnetic Education (CAEME) Committee, chaired by Magdy Iskander (University of Utah) in a CAEME Workshop. ACES also held a Software Validation Workshop, attended by about 40 persons who formed five working groups to discuss various aspects of code validation.
The ACES ADCOM voted at its July 1989 meeting to support sponsorship of CAEME. President Logan represented ACES as a non-voting guest at the first meeting of the CAEME Policy Board in December 1989. He requested ACES membership, which would allow voting status on the Policy Board, in return for a $3,000 annual fee. Membership privileges would include access to CAEME reports and developed hardware. President Logan nominated Edmund Miller to represent ACES on the CAEME Technical Advisory Committee. In ACES Newsletter Vol. IV.3, December 1989, Wayne Harader (Ball Communications), ad hoc Chairman of the Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems Committee, solicited inputs for applying knowledge in these areas to electromagnetic modeling.
The new slate of officers approved by the membership on March 20, 1990, at the Sixth Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics, March 19-22 at NPS, was: President, Stanley Kubina; Vice President, Harold Sabbagh; Secretary, Richard Adler; Treasurer, James Breakall; Member-at-large, Raymond Luebbers.
The Sixth Annual Review was chaired by Scott Ray: there were 220 attendees at 11 sessions (including one poster) and a short course. The 50 papers were featured in the Review Proceedings of 437 pages. As reported in Vol. V.1 of the ACES Newsletter, March 1990, the special issue of the ACES Journal entitled "The ACES Collection of Canonical Problems - Set 1" with Vice President Sabbagh as guest editor, would be available in March, 1990. Member cost would be $9, US;$12, non-US. This had become a springboard for ACES to co-sponsor a previously scheduled TEAM (Testing Electromagnetic Applications Methods) Workshop, which was likewise devoted to solving benchmark problems. Plans called for a two-day workshop at the Fourth Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computations in Toronto, Canada, October 22-24, 1990.
Rüdiger Anders reported at the ADCOM meeting that the workshop planned for November of 1989 would be postponed to September 1990. Announcements would be mailed to more than 50 ACES European members. ACES was incorporated in California as a non-profit organization on March 26, 1990., following the Sixth Annual Review of Progress. At the APS Symposium in Dallas, May 10, 1990, the ADCOM approved the Bylaws, elected the new Board of Directors (ADCOM had served as the interim Board) and established the terms of office of its members. Officers would be elected every two years. It also established committees and transferred the assets of the old ACES into the new Corporation.
The new Board of Directors (BOD) consisted of nine members, three of 3-year terms, three of 2-year terms, and three of 1-year terms:
President, Stanley Kubina - 3-year term
Vice President, Harold Sabbagh - 3-year term
Secretary, Richard Adler - 2-year term
Treasurer, James Breakall - 2-year term
with the following Members-at-large:
Raymond Luebbers - 3-year term
Scott Ray (LLNL) - 2-year term
Peter Cunningham (Army, Ft. Monmouth) - 1-year term
Past President Edmund Miller (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, LANL) - 1-year term
Past President James Logan - 1-year term
The BOD also approved the following Committees of the Board:
Executive Committee - President Kubina, Secretary Adler (non-voting),
Past President Logan
Financial Committee
President Kubina,
Vice President Sabbagh,
Secretary Adler,
Past President Logan,
Treasurer Breakall (non-voting),
David Stein (non-voting)
Nominations Committee
Vice President Sabbagh,
Past President Logan,
Member-at-large Cunningham
The existing committees of ACES were approved as committees of the ACES Corporation. The formal process of the Bylaws took effect at this time. According to them, the annual report would be prepared and an annual meeting would be held during each Annual Review of Progress for election of new directors and transaction of ACES business. Meetings of the BOD would be convened regularly. Past President Logan, working with Secretary Adler and Frank Walker (Boeing Aerospace), presented the Board with three options for the 5-year budget projection, to be presented at the 1991 Annual Review. The option believed to be most practical prescribed a single annual Journal and a $10 increase in annual dues. Treasurer Breakall reported a net $48,450 of assets were transferred to ACES, Inc.
In Vol. V.2 of the ACES Newsletter, July 1990, Editor-in-chief Stein made an extensive report. INSPEC, the database for physics, electronics, and computing, would include ACES Journal papers in its abstracting services. ACES at this time had been accepted for membership in the United Kingdom-based Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. The "Canonical Problem Solution" project, initiated under the ACES Journal special-issue program, had launched the ACES Workshop Program. That, in turn, had paved the way for cooperative activities with the European TEAM (see above). Between December, 1989 and April, 1990 ACES lost its free postage and printing privileges with NPS, helped support CAEME, suffered a reduction in short-course income, and incurred incorporation expenses. To maintain financial reserves the ACES regular Journals had been reduced to one per year, and Newsletters, to three per year, with new restrictions on special-issue Journals. However, the BOD determined on May 10, 1990, that two regular Journals could be published in 1990. It also voted that ACES become a scientific sponsor of COMPUMAG and advertise its activities. In the immediate future following this meeting of the Board, ACES would publish two Journals and three Newsletters annually, plus each special-issue Journal in one of three ways: as a special section of a regular Journal, in place of a regular issue, or as an optional purchase publication not included in the membership dues. Since the standards for selecting recipients for Best ACES Journal Paper Award had not yet been defined, plans for presenting the awards were cancelled.
Later the standards would be reviewed after examining those for the ACES Journal and ACES Newsletter.
Editor-in-chief Stein concluded his report by saying that a code-indexing service for Journal papers and Newsletter articles would begin with the July 1990 Newsletter issue. The Newsletter would also compile a running bibliography of measured electromagnetic data appropriate for code validation. This Newsletter issue, which launched a new feature, "Perspectives on ACES and Computational Electromagnetics", also included reports from the Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, chaired by Wayne Harader, and the Code User Group Committee, a spinoff of the ACES Editorial Board and chaired by Christopher Smith (Kaman Sciences Corp.). The Committee on Artificial Intelligence held its first meeting during the Sixth Annual Review in March. Ten of the committee members who expressed interest in how the Committee should operate could reach no consensus about it. So they decided, for the time being, to collect and publish a list of activities in which "intelligence" was being added to electromagnetic codes. The Code User Group report stated that it had been forming subgroups since December 1989. Since then, 40 members had returned interest questionnaires and a response database had been created. One new subgroup, the Moment Method Code Users Group, 10.would support NEC-2 and NEC-3 (and variants), MININEC-3, and GEMACS (although this code implements other methods). Russell Taylor (McDonnell Douglas Corp.) would act as Chairman. A second subgroup interested in high-frequency methods, such as GTD (Geometrical Theory of Diffraction), would have Christopher Smith as Chairman. Ronald Marhefka (Ohio State University) would cooperate with users of NEC-BCS (Basic Scattering Code). ACES Newsletter Vol. V.3 dated November 1990 and edited by Paul Elliot (now at ARCO Power Technologies) contained a report from the Software Performance Standards Committee, co-chaired by Andrew Peterson (Georgia Institute of Technology) and Vice President Sabbagh. It stated that the "ACES Collection of Canonical Problems - Set 1", guest-edited by Vice President Sabbagh, was published in the Spring of 1990 and made available at the Sixth Annual Review, and also that workshops facilitating exchange of information about test problems were held during May at the joint IEEE APS-MTT (Microwave Theory and Techniques)-URSI Conference in Dallas and also during October at the Fourth Biennial IEEE Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation, held in Toronto.
The nine canonical problems in this Set spanned the frequency range 900 Hz to 10 GHz, with both transient and steady-state excitation. Solutions to these and TEAM Workshop problems would be discussed at a series of international workshops sponsored jointly by TEAM and ACES. In Newsletter VI.1, published March 1991, we learned that Reinaldo Perez (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology) became the new Associate Newsletter editor. The issue also announced an upcoming special issue of the Journal on the subject of Bioelectromagnetic Computations, with Anthony H. J. Fleming and K. H. Joyner (both at Telecom Australia Research Laboratories) as guest editors.
Annual membership dues were increased $10, effective April 1, 1991. The new rates became: individual, $45 (U.S.) and $55 (non U.S.); institutional, $95 and $195; student, $25. The budget for 1990 posted a net worth (assets minus liabilities) on December 31 of $34,326. Income was $71,883; expenses, $68,607.
The second ACES-TEAM Workshop was held in Sendai, Japan, following the International Seminar on Computational Applied Electromagnetics, January 31-February 1, 1991. It was hosted jointly by the Electrical Engineering Department of Hokkaido University and the Institute of Fluid Science of Tohoku University. The third Workshop was scheduled for Sorrento, Italy, following the COMPUMAG meeting held July 7-11. These workshops focussed on the use of canonical problems to validate electromagnetic codes and models.
The Seventh Annual Review of Progress, held March 18-22, 1991 and chaired by Frank Walker, featured a number of new highlights: a Featured Canonical Problems Review, CAEME special session, 14 vendor booths, six short courses, and a video tape of an MIT tutorial, presented by CAEME. This tutorial was entitled "Fundamental Demonstrations of Electromagnetic Fields and Energy", by M. Zahn, J.R. Melcher, and M.L. Silva. Eighty-one papers were presented in 17 sessions. In an international forum ACES regional representatives from 8 regions - Great Britain, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Australia, Japan, China, South America and South Africa - reported on topics of technical importance to each region. The Proceedings of this Review spanned 703 papers. In 1991 Boeing Co. made a grant to ACES which allowed a representative of the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania, to attend the Annual Review. In 1992 a repeat grant would allow a representative from Jiaotong University in Xi'an, Peoples Republic of China, to attend that Review.
James Logan and Edmund Miller were reelected to the BOD and Andrew Peterson became a new Director. Karl Kunz (Penn State University) replaced James Logan on the CAEME Board. Andrew Terzuoli (Air Force Institute of Technology) and Frank Walker replaced Charles Vandament as co-chairmen of the Software Exchange Committee. Russell Taylor (McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Co.) replaced Christopher Smith as Chairman of the Code Users Group. Membership in ACES now stood at 510: 398 in the U.S.; 19 in the rest of North and South America; 63 in Europe, 5 in Asian and African countries; and 25 in the Pacific Rim.
John W. Williams (Science Applications International Corporation, SAIC) and Managing Editor Adler had arranged for the inclusion of the ACES Journal in various international abstracts and indexing databases. A Call for Papers was announced for a Journal special issue on Computer Applications in Electromagnetics Education, with Magny Iskander as special guest editor. The BOD met June 25 at the 1991 International APS and URSI Symposium, held at the University of Western Ontario. It elected the following officers for the next 2-year term beginning in March of 1992:
President, Harold Sabbagh
Vice President, Raymond Luebbers
Secretary, Richard Adler
Treasurer, James Breakall
The Board also approved the establishment of an ACES United Kingdom Chapter after the foundation work performed by Anthony K. Brown (EASAT Antennas Limited) and Patricia Foster (Microwave and Antenna Systems), of the UK NEC Users Group. Patricia Foster would also chair the Eighth Annual Review in Monterey, March 1992.
Vol. VI.3 of the Newsletter, November 1991, announced an ACES Workshop on "Applied Computational Electromagnetics Directions for the Nineties" in Melbourne, Australia, on August 14, 1992. Anthony H. J. Fleming, the ACES International Workshop Chairman, was the organizer. It was sponsored by ACES, the Telecom Australian Research Labs, The Victoria Section of the IEEE, the Defence Science and Technology Organization, and TEAM. A special Journal issue was announced : "Bioelectromagnetic Computations", with Anthony Fleming and K. H. Joyner as guest editors. Another special issue entitled \Applications of High-Frequency Methods and Computer Technologies in Electromagnetics", with Fulvio Bessi (Ingegneria dei Sistemi S.p.A.) as guest editor, was published the summer of 1991 and available for purchase. At the end of 1991 the ACES UK Chapter was formed, with these officers:
Anthony Brown, Chairman
Patricia Foster, Treasurer
David Lizius (Culham Lab, UK), Secretary.
In addition, three other members belonged to the founding committee. At this time ACES had 525 members, with approximately 26% from non-U.S. countries. These included 8 students, 83 organizations, and 434 individuals. 12.Total membership increased during 1991 by 10% but the non-U.S. component declined 14%.
Effective April 1, 1992, individual membership rates were $55 for U.S. residents, $65 for non-U.S. residents, and $60 for Canadians. For organizations the rates were $105, U.S.; and $115, non-U.S. The student rate remained $25. In Newsletter VII.1 of March 1992 the ACES Editorial Board Committee (chaired by Editor-in-chief Stein) pondered the problem of offsetting rising postal rates with a possible future solution in electronic publishing. This would standardize publication formats but discourage some authors who lacked the required software. As an intermediate measure the Committee decided to encourage but not require authors to submit their papers on disks, along with the camera-ready copy. At least this would achieve partial standardization and simplify error correction.
Randy Jost (Stanford Research Institute, International) proposed an e-mail database and asked the membership for an expression of interest. By June 1 seventeen members expressed interest. Mr. Jost would update the database regularly, maintain a "telephone directory" of members, and offered to create an on-line database for electromagnetic code users if there was sufficient interest. The Eighth Annual Review of Progress, March 16-20, 1992, with Patricia Foster as Chairwoman, featured 80 papers in 12 sessions, 25 by authors outside North America. Tradition was broken with a variety of events during one afternoon: technical poster sessions, CAEME demonstrations of its software, other software vendors, along with a parallel meeting on Canonical Problems. Four full-day short courses and three half-day courses were held.
Newsletter VII.2 of July 1992 contained the following news. Professor Luis M. Correia (Technical University of Lisbon) had agreed to serve as ACES representative in Portugal, and Professor Duncan Baker agreed to be a representative in South Africa. The annual business meeting on March 17 saw the election of Secretary Adler, Treasurer Breakall and Frank Walker to the BOD for 3-year terms. Secretary Adler announced a temporary California non-profit status for ACES, with permanent status contingent upon continuation of the U.S. non-profit status, already granted. The financial statement by ACES CPAs, dated
December 31, 1991, listed total assets (cash + property) of $36,251. On January 1, 1991, retained earnings (i.e., total assets) amounted to $40,494. The 1991 net income was the difference, or -$4,243 (a loss). Total assets on January 1, 1990, were $31,814.
Editor-in-chief Stein reported the average time from an article submission to Journal publication was four months. At that time two Journals were published each year, with a special issue occasionally replacing a regular one. The Newsletter was publishing three times a year. Andrew Peterson (Georgia Institute of Technology), Chairman of the ACES Software Performance Standards Committee, stated that the joint ACES-APS Workshop on Benchmark Problems would be held July 25, 1992, following the IEEE-APS International Symposium in Chicago. Eleven persons would attend this Workshop. Also a TEAM Workshop would be held at the Fifth Biennial Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation at Harvey Mudd College, August 6-7, 1992. Fifty-four persons would participate in this latter Workshop.
This issue VII.2 of the Newsletter contained an updated index of 44 computer codes described in the newsletter and in Vol. VI, 1991 of the Journal. Some of these codes might not have been available to ACES members. In future years the second Newsletter issue of each year would contain a similar updated index of various codes described in the previous year's Journals and Newsletters. Newsletter Editor Elliot requested information on measured electromagnetic data in all areas of electromagnetics for a bibliography. The Code User Group's Chairman, Russell Taylor, reported that information received from developers and users would either be distributed to User Group members or published in a Newsletter. Anthony Fleming, the ACES International Workshop Chairman, announced an International Workshop on Applied Computational Electromagnetics, entitled "Directions for the Nineties", to be held on August 14, 1992 between the Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference in Adelaide and the URSI Electromagnetic Theory Symposium in Sydney, Australia. Vol. VII.3 of the Newsletter, November 1992, reported the following news.
Russell Taylor of the Code Users Group Committee said an ACES on-line bulletin board would be established on INTERNET during the next few months. Wayne Harader of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems sought suggestions and comments on ways to develop the artificial intelligence electromagnetics area and obtain sponsorship. Frank Walker and Andrew Terzuoli, co-chairmen of the Software Exchange Committee, were preparing to go to press with the 1993 edition of the ACES Software Catalogue, planned for distribution at the 1993 Ninth Annual Review.
The Newsletter also summarized the ACES/TEAM Workshop at Telecom Australia Research Labs, with about 80 attendees. Edmund Miller discussed the likely impact of future computers on computational electromagnetics. Gerald Burke described features of soon-to-be-released NEC-4; Tapan Sarkar (Syracuse University) spoke of integral equation approaches for microstrip-like structures. J. Bach Andersen (University of AÄalborg) described application of the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method to portable antennas. The workshop demonstrated the usefulness of ACES/TEAM as a forum.
A special ACES Journal issue entitled "Advances in the Numerical Computation of Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields" was announced. The guest editors would be Adalbert Konrad and J. Douglas Lavers (both University of Toronto). The deadline for papers would be May 31, 1993. The membership dues changed on April 1, 1993. Four separate regions were identified: the U.S. and Canada; Mexico, Central, and South America; Europe, the former USSR, Turkey and Scandinavia; and Asia, Africa, Middle East and Pacific Rim. Surface mail, which was not appropriate for the U.S. and Canada, would be $63 for the other regions. Individual airmail would range from $60 for the first region to $80 for the last. All organizational mail would be airmailed at $110. Student rate would remain $25 everywhere.
Randy Jost stated that 34 ACES members were on the E-mail databases as of November 1992.
At the end of 1992 ACES membership stood at 514, with 8 students, 88 organizations, and 418 individuals. Approximately 28% were from non-U.S. countries. Total membership had decreased by 2% from December 1991, but total non-U.S. membership rose by 6%.
The Financial Report by Treasurer Logan disclosed assets on January 1, 1992 of $33,375, which had dropped to $27,998 on December 31, 1992. Income for 1992 was approximately $89,206, expenses were nearly $94,600, for a net loss of $5,377. This loss was due to increased publication costs (9% higher) and increased postage and flyer costs (18% higher). ACES had run a loss for 1990, 1991, and 1992 and it appeared to be at a financial crossroads! Some unexpected income from the Department of Energy (DOE) in 1993 helped to change this bleak financial picture.
The March 1993 Newsletter, VIII.1, contained an Editorial Board Committee Report stating the intention of publishing three Journals each year. The Board now included substantial representation of computational electromagnetics "sister" organizations: TEAM, COMPUMAG, and CEFC (Conference on Electromagnetic Field Computation). Newsletter editors Elliot and Perez had authored a series of descriptive articles about ACES in newsletters and magazines of other professional societies. Kenzo Miya of Japan had elaborated on ACES to his Japanese Society for Applied Electromagnetics in Materials and was exploring cooperative activities. At this time the ACES Journal Editorial Board and ACES Newsletter Staff represented 13 nations on five continents. By this time, several ACES Journal editors and a few ACES members were actively promoting ACES and were acting as "ACES Ambassadors" to other professional societies, particularly in Europe, Africa, Australia, and Japan. Dr. A.K. Brown, correspondent for the ACES UK Chapter (formed October 1992) stated that at the Chapter's first annual meeting a NEC User's Group of invited speakers provided overviews of work undertaken at United Kingdom universities. The Chapter was at that time considering a "hands-on" beginners' course in NEC for students and graduates, to begin in 1993. The Chapter had also begun publishing its own Newsletter in the fall of 1992, edited by Jeffrey W. R. Cox (Defence Research Agency, UK). Mr. R. P. Haviland (Professional Engineer), an ACES member, had written a set of computer programs especially for the radio amateurs, describing a wide range of antennas in the MF to SHF frequency range. The March 1993 Newsletter contained information about these programs.
The Ninth Annual Review of Progress, held March 22-26, 1993, in Monterey and chaired by Perry Wheless, included a variety of events: a Canonical Problem Session, CAEME posters and software demonstrations, vendor demonstrations, and committee and user group meetings, as well as five full-day short courses and three half-day courses. All but one of the courses were given on the first and last days of the Review. The course fees were $130 for a full day; $80 for a half day, if received by March 8. Vol. VIII.2 of the Newsletter of July 1993 announced the addition of David B. Davidson (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) as Associate Editor.
The Treasurer's report for the period January 1, 1993 to June 24, 1993 recorded an increase of total assets from $27,997 to $53,378, largely due to the profit of $35,167 from the Annual Review in March. (Some Review expenses were still outstanding.)
Regarding the Outreach effort, Russell Taylor, Chairman of the Code Users Group, reported an arrangement with the Millimeter Wave/Microwave Advanced Computational Environment (MMACE) project called "BBS". This allowed ACES members to send E-mail to the MMACE computer for requests of files. A future FTP link would be possible. At the Ninth Annual Review in March of 1993 the BOD created the position of Executive Officer and appointed then-Secretary Adler, with Perry Wheless (University of Alabama) as replacement. Officer Adler's position on the Board was filled by Patricia Foster. The members of the new Board and their BOD (not officer) terms of expiration were:
President, Harold Sabbagh - 1996
Vice President, Raymond Luebbers - 1996
Secretary, Perry Wheless - 1996
Treasurer (and Past President) James Logan - 1994
with members-at-large
Patricia Foster -1995
James Breakall - 1995
Frank Walker - 1995
Andrew Peterson - 1994
Past President Edmund Miller - 1994
The Executive Committee now included the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Executive Officer. The BOD also decreed that committee chairmen must convene their committees at least twice a year and submit a written report to the Board at each of its meetings. It enacted several publication measures due to budgetary constraints: a voluntary page charge of $75 per page for Journal papers, beginning in 1994, and page limits for each Journal and Newsletter issue. Two Journal issues and three Newsletters would be published annually.
At the Review's Awards Banquet seven awards were presented to the following persons: Patricia Foster for support of ACES activities, notably in the UK Chapter; Duncan Baker, for ACES BOD activities and promotional projects; Perry Wheless, for chairing the Ninth Annual Review; and Anthony Fleming, for arranging the first ACES-oriented regional workshop outside the U.S. and for Australian and New Zealand promotion. Additional awards went for best paper and two technical achievements. In July, 1993 the Permanent Standing Committees and their Chairmen were: Nominations, Stanley Kubina; Elections, Shing Ted Li (NRAD, the renamed NOSC); Finance, James Logan (NRAD); Ways and Means, Raymond Luebbers; Publications, David Stein; Conference, Richard Adler; Awards, Lee Corrington. Raymond Luebbers had decided to step down as Vice President but remain on the BOD; Frank Walker took his place. The Membership Activty Committees were: Code Users Group, Russell Taylor; Software Exchange, Frank Walker; 16.Software Performance Standards, Andrew Peterson; Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Wayne Harrader; and Historical, Robert Bevensee (BOMA ENTERPRISES).
The Code Users Group reported that ACES then had two electronic bulletin board hosts{one a mail server, in coopoeration with the MMACE Program, hosted by NRL (Naval Research Laboratory) in Washington, DC. The other was an anonymous FTP site hosted by the University of Missouri at Rolla. At
that time no software was available. ACES members were invited to submit public domain or shareware material to Chairman Taylor, Randy Jost, or to Todd Hubing (University of Missouri, Rolla) for posting to these machines.
The Software Exchange Committee at this time had three officers: Chairman Frank Walker, Vice Chairman Randy Jost, and Secretary Todd Hubing, with 20 members-at-large. Frank Walker would request Air Force authorization for GEMACS 3.7 distribution by ACES.
The report of the ACES Regional Activities Committee (formerly the Meetings Committee under Raymond Luebbers) made by Frank Walker, Chairman, with foreign members Duncan Baker, South Africa, Anthony Fleming, Australia, and Adel Razek, France, summarized the locations and dates of all the past TEAM/ACES regional activities: Toronto, October 1990; Sendai, January 1991; Sorrento, July 1991; Clayton Victoria, Australia, August 1992; and Clairmont, California, August 1992. The ACES Editorial Board members arranged the TEAM/ACES Workshops. Duncan Baker and Derek McNamara were, at that time, arranging an ACES workshop to be attached to the annual joint APMTT Symposium in August, sponsored by the Pretoria Chapter of APS/MTTS, SAIEE (South African Institute of Electrical Engineers), and the University of Pretoria. The workshop would be titled "Gaining Insight Through Computational Electromagnetics". Regretfully, it was cancelled due to lack of support by potential users of CEM (Computational Electromagnetics) techniques other than the handful o9f academics already active in the field.
The Conference Report for the Ninth Annual Review reported 119 technical papers in 22 sessions, printed in 938 pages of the Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics. Two hundred and eight persons registered, compared to 145 in 1991 and 167 in 1992. John Rockway (NRAD) organized a slate of seven short courses. At this time ACES had its IRS non-profit tax status validated through 1996.
On June 29, 1993, the BOD approved an ACES Handbook for Elections by Mail, prepared by James Logan and Andrew Peterson. ln Vol. VIII.3 of the Newsletter, November 1993, we learned that Shing Ted ("Pete") Li (NRAD) would step down as Chairman of the Elections Committee after long service, to be succeeded by James Breakall. Lee Corrington would retire as Chairman of the Awards Committee, succeeded by David Stein. In September of 1993 David would relinquish his Publications positions to Perry Wheless and Richard Adler, who would become the ACES Publications Editor-in-chief and ACES Managing Editor, respectively. David would be honored as Editor-in-chief Emeritus. Duncan Baker was appointed Journal Editor-in-chief and Adalbert Konrad was appointed in October 1993 to the position of Associate Editor-in-chief.
The Software Exchange Committee reported that ACES had received many requests for status of various NEC-MOM (method of moments) codes : NEC 2 (circa 1981), NEC 3 (circa 1985), and NEC 4 (circa 1993). This committee was tasked to distribute information on all the major computational electromagnetic (CEM) tools in its collection. Todd Hubing stated that he had set up an anonymous FTP site for ACES-related items, such as the E-mail database, technical reports, and software.
The ACES Executive Committee approved in December 1993 an increased Publications budget, to be ratified by the membership at the Tenth Annual Review in March (after membership first approved the Bylaw change authorizing the Executive Committee itself). This budget would allow three Journals in 1994. The ACES Journal is now administered by an international editorial board with 43 editors from more than 9 nations. Voluntary page charges for articles will be effective during 1994. Mandatory excessive-length page charges of $75 per page will apply for pages exceeding 12 where any author is an ACES member and 8 if no author is an ACES member. After acceptance of a manuscript the first author's company would be requested to pay a charge of $75 per printed page.
Treasurer Logan's financial report indicated net assets of $27,998 on January 1, 1993 and $52,940 on December 31. Income for 1993 was approximately $117,300 while expenses were approximately $92,350. Compared to a net loss of $5,377 for 1992, the net profit for 1993 arose from increased Review income and reduced Review and publication expense.
In the first edition of the ACES Journal for 1994, Vol. 9.1, a compact double column format was introduced. This voluntary format permitted more efficient use of allocated page limitations. The ACES Tenth Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagnetics was held March 21-26, 1994, at the Doubletree Hotel in Monterey. It was managed by Veda Corporation under contract to the Air Force via Andrew Terzuoli, Review Chairman. Veda prepared the Review Proceedings and handled all publicity, both at no cost to ACES. This reduced ACES' expenses by about $20,000. Co-chairmen were Dennis Andersh and Jeffrey Fath (both Wright Labs, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base). Facilitator was Jodi Nix (Veda Corp.); advisor was Richard Adler. Sponsors included DOD/OSA, CECOM, DOE, LLNL, NCCOSC, NRAD, NPS, and USAIESA, in cooperation with the IEEE AP and EC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) Societies, USNC/URSI and CEFC.
Fifteen service awards and three outstanding paper awards were presented at the Awards Banquet. Valued Service awards went to Christopher Smith for establishing the ACES Code User Group Committee, and Jodi Nix for Annual Review Facilitator and ACES worldwide promotional activities. Exemplary Service Awards went to John W. Williams, for contributions to scholarly publication and ACES Journal promotion; Reinaldo Perez, for work in publications as well as promotional and marketing projects; Adalbert Konrad, for contributions to scholarly publications, intersociety relations and special promotional projects; Kenzo Miya, for ACES' promotion in Japan and elsewhere; and Harold Sabbagh, for contributions in regional activities, intersociety relations, and validation of computational techniques. Mainstay Awards went to John W. Rockway, for starting and managing the ACES Review short course program; Lee Corrington, for starting and pioneering the ACES Awards program; Shing Ted Li, for starting and pioneering the ACES Election-by-mail Program; and Patricia Adler, wife of Richard Adler, for her initiative and sustained service throughout ACES' 9-year period in publications, production, ACES Review support, and member services administration. The following persons received a Founders Award: Paul Elliot, as Newsletter editor and innovator, and ACES publicizer; Anthony Brown, as co-founder of the NEC UK Users Group and first regional ACES Chapter; James Logan, as financial officer and former Treasurer, Vice President, and President of ACES; and Richard Adler, for his vision and leadership in sustained service as Executive Officer, ACES Review Local-arrangements Coordinator, Managing Editor of ACES' publications, former ACES Secretary, and unofficial Strategic Planner.
At the BOD meeting on March 20 it determined that its annual meeting would be held on the first technical-paper day, with the annual business meeting of members held the morning of the next day. The present Board members and their term expiration dates are:
Harold Sabbagh (President) - 1996
Frank Walker (Vice President) - 1996
Perry Wheless (Secretary) - 1996
Andrew Peterson (Treasurer) - 1997
with members-at-large
Duncan Baker - 1997
James Breakall - 1995
Patricia Foster - 1995
Edmund Miller - 1997.
The three members of the BOD with terms expiring in 1997 had been elected by mail. About 217 registrants attended 23 sessions and presented 151 papers, which were printed in two volumes of the Review Proceedings spanning 1193 pages.
Highlights included vendor exhibits, five full-day short courses and six half-day courses. A special session of invited papers in bioelectromagnetic effects was underwritten by DOE. The net proceeds to ACES were nearly $42,000. Reinaldo Perez became Editor-in-chief of the Newsletter in February 1994, succeeding Paul Elliot. In the Vol. IX.1, March 1994, issue of the Newsletter ACES members learned that the Software Performance Standards Committee, now chaired by Donald Pflug (Rome Laboratory/ERPT), was cooperating with the IEEE APS Modeling Software Committee in sharing information about validation and performance analysis of codes and their computational models. This Newsletter issue introduced a voluntary double column format permitting a more efficient use of allocated page limits.
Membership rates (which include Journals and Newsletters) effective April 1, 1994, increased by $5, except for students. For individual surface mail the rates are $65 for the U.S. and $68 for all other areas. For individual airmail, rates vary from $65 for the U.S. to $85 for Africa, the Mideast, Asia, and Pacific Basin. The organizational airmail-only rate was increased to $115 for all. President Sabbagh summarized the activities of ACES in his Newsletter article entitled "The Applied Computational Electromagnetics Society", also published in the IEEE AP Magazine of February 1994, pp 18-19. He summarized the activities, which included validation and performance analyses of codes; computational studies of basic physics; new techniques, such as vector and parallel data processing; new applications for existing techniques; new codes and enhancements and fixes" for old ones; computational tricks of the trade; and input-output and hardware issues.
ACES code applications relate to electromagnetic wave propagation, antennas, radar cross section and scattering, shielding, EMP, EMI (electromagnetic interference), EMC, microwave components,fiber optics, NDE (nondestructive evaluation), and eddy currents. Problems are formulated in either the time domain and solved by finite difference, finite element, and integral equation methods, or in the frequency domain, where they are solved by diffraction theories, physical optics and integral equation methods.
ACES sponsors an evolving computational data base, to be used for code validation, performance analysis, and optimization, as well as for information about codes and techniques. Each data set would be documented to include such items as code and machine used.
Treasurer Peterson's Report of May 31, 1994 offered reassurance that ACES would continue to prosper for many years to come. On January 1, 1994, total assets were $51,239, and these grew to $103,550 on May 31. The increase was due primarily to the Review net proceeds of nearly $42,000.
The Special Issue of the {ACES Journal}, Vol. 9.2, dated July, 1994, was devoted to The Numerical Computation of Low Frequency Electromagnetic Fields. It was edited by special guest editors Adalbert Konrad and J. D. Lavers. The compact double column format was used to good effect and allowed publication of 12 special issue and 7 regular papers, as well as several notes concerning Journal policy, calls for papers, and other items--all in 186 pages.