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REPORT FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF CJASS (March 01, 2002) Since the last NEC meeting in October 2001, 21 new submissions were processed. On average, 5 submissions are now received per month. This is in contrast to a year ago where months could pass without any submission. Furthermore, manuscripts are not only increasing in number but also in quality. As can be seen in Table 1, the rejection rate slowly but significantly decreased since the beginning of this Editorship.
Table 1. Status of submissions at the end of each reporting period over the last year
The first issue of Volume 46 (for the year 2001) appeared in the fall of 2001, Volume 46 is now almost complete. Issues 1 and 2 have already been distributed whereas Issues 3-5 are in the typesetting/proofreading stages. Issue 6 (the last issue) is expected to be at the same stage by the end of March 2002. It is anticipated that the first issue of 2002 could appear as early as in June 2002, a significant improvement over the previous year! The whole editorial board is to be thanked for their continuous effort: all the Editors and the Journal Manager swiftly process manuscripts, whereas members of the Editorial Board are giving the example by publishing in the journal. Indeed, in addition to the outstanding review paper by Wasylishen's group that appeared in Issue 2 of Volume 46, submissions by the groups of Belzile and Caruso are in press, whereas those of Mantsch, Grégoire, Rittner and Winefordner are being refereed or revised. Contributions from the rest of the board are expected shortly. A further increase in publication rate is anticipated. Several issues of the journal will be devoted to papers presented at the upcoming 48th ICASS and some special issues are in preparation. Pierre Harvey (U. Sherbrooke) has agreed to serve as Guest Editor for an issue in honour of past Editor-in-Chief I. Butler. Doug Goltz (U. Winnipeg) will do the same for past Editor-in-Chief C. Charkrabarti. Depending on the number of submissions and their length, several issues may be devoted to each of them. Although the invitation letter for papers for the issue to honour Ian Butler was only sent in February, twenty authors have already committed to submit a paper for this issue of the Journal. In summary, the future clearly looks brighter for the journal. The goal of completing Volume 47 in 2002 certainly seems reachable. (The first issue of 2003 would then appear at the beginning of 2003!) The journal owes a great debt of gratitude to its two sponsors, Agilent Technologies Inc. and Varian Canada Inc., for supporting it through this difficult and crucial time. Diane Beauchemin
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