RSN Editorial 2016

Abstract

It is a pleasure to report that the Premium Award for papers published in the journal in 2014 is made to Pei-Hung Jau, Nai-Chung Kuo, Jui-Chi Kao, Kun-You Lin, Fan-Ren Chang, En-Cheng Yang and Huei Wang, of the National Taiwan University and Zuo-Min Tsai of Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, for their paper Signal Processing for Harmonic Pulse Radar based on Spread Spectrum Technology, which appeared in the March 2014 issue of the journal (vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 242–250). The paper describes a 9.4/18.8 GHz harmonic radar, used to detect and track small insect targets such as bees, beetles and butterflies. Although harmonic radar has been used for entomological research for some years, in this work a pseudo-random spread spectrum code was used to provide increased sensitivity, demonstrating detection ranges of 60 m in experimental trials. The work stood out as being genuinely novel, with real experimental results, and presented in a notably clear and readable manner. We warmly congratulate the authors on this award. The names of the members of the Editorial Board are listed inside the front cover of this journal; the members are distinguished researchers who represent the full scope of the journal, and they come from all over the world. They help with reaching decisions on submitted papers, encouraging authors to submit their work to the journal, and suggesting topics for Special Issues and Special Sections. Special Issues and Special Sections provide a means of highlighting particular hot topics, and recent ones include Application of Radar to Remote Patient Monitoring and Eldercare, published in February 2015 and edited by Professor Fauzia Ahmad; MicroDoppler, edited by David Tahmoush, Hao Ling, Ljubiša Stankovic and Thayanathan Thayaparan, published in December 2015; and Catching the Invisible (based on papers from the SEE International Radar Conference held in Lille, France, in October 2014), edited by Marc Lesturgie and Hugh Griffiths, published in January 2016. There are several more Special Issues and Special Sections in the pipeline. The various statistics by which the performance is measured show that the journal is in good shape. The impact factor of the journal has increased again to 1.135 – the highest it has ever been. The number of submissions has increased substantially, by more than 60% over the past two years. For the year to date in 2015 the average time to first decision is 12 weeks, the average time to final acceptance is 16 weeks, and the average time to publication in electronic form is 28 weeks and in printed form 32 weeks. Such rapid publication is known to be an important factor to authors in deciding where to publish their research. The ability to maintain such a rapid time to first decision, at the same time as handling the increased number of submissions, is the result of sterling effort by the referees who give freely of their time and expertise to peer-review submissions to the journal. Although the referees necessarily remain anonymous, their function is absolutely critical to maintaining the high standard of papers published, and they deserve our sincere thanks. The increase in the number of submissions has also allowed the acceptance rate to be currently maintained at about 30% – so only the best papers are accepted and the standard is certainly high. We look forward to the coming year with optimism, and to improving these figures still further.