Abstract :
2010 marks the 30th anniversary of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (TPAMI), although the precise timing is a matter of some debate (overly meticulous readers might point out that the first issue appeared in January 1979). However, it is indisputable that TPAMI celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2000, and the author will follow this tradition and declare this year to be our 30th anniversary. An anniversary, of course, is traditionally an occasion to look at the past for perspective and also to think about the future. For the 20th anniversary, TPAMI published a series of survey articles, and it is instructive to consider the areas represented: statistical pattern recognition, document image analysis, handwriting recognition, medical image analysis, sensing for ubiquitous computing, and content-based image retrieval. While many of these areas remain important, perhaps the most striking development of the last decade has been the growth of areas at the intersection of computer vision and other fields. Machine learning, of course, is the preeminent example, but graphics and discrete optimization have also gained considerable importance. Turning to the current state of the journal, TPAMI is in excellent shape. The standard way of measuring the overall excellence of a journal is the Thompson-ISI impact factor, and TPAMI in 2008 has surpassed even its impressive 2007 performance. The impact factor is now 5.96, and there were 24,674 total citations in 2008. This makes TPAMI not only the #1 IEEE (and thus IEEE CS) publication, but also #1 in both electrical engineering and artificial intelligence, as well as #3 in all of computer science. These numbers are all-time highs. The situation for journals in 2010 poses some obvious challenges, such as the growing popularity of new ways to disseminate research results, even within traditionalist institutions such as universities. Yet TPAMI is well positioned due to its nonprofit status, along with - ts long-established tradition of publishing high-impact papers. We can all look forward to the many exciting research developments that will no doubt appear in TPAMI in the coming decade.
