IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS is published monthly in three parts beginning January 1998. The first part of the Transactions, published in odd numbered months of the year, will be devoted to systems and humans. The second part, published in even numbered months of the year, will be devoted to cybernetics. The third part of the Transactions, will be published quarterly in February, May, August, and November. The scope of this part of the Transactions, sent to all SMC members, includes applications and reviews in all areas of SMC. Each paper submitted is subjected to a thorough review procedure, and the publication decision is based on the reviewers' comments. Review management is generally under the direction of an associate editor. Often, reviews take three months to five months to obtain, occasionally longer, and it takes an additional several months for the publication process. An editorial "On SMC Editorial Procedures and Processes" that expands on these matters may be found in the Transactions, Vol. 28C, No. 1, February 1998. This is also available on the WWW at "http://www.isye.gatech.edu/ieee-smc/", which is the SMC Society WWW site.

A. Process for Submission of a Technical Paper

1. Submit five copies of the manuscript, each copy complete with illustrations.
2. Prepare originals for the illustrations in the style described below. Good quality copies should be sent initially, with the originals ready to be sent immediately upon acceptance of the paper.
3. Enclose a separate signed letter giving the preferred address for correspondence for the contact author to whom all correspondence should be sent.
4. If the manuscript has been presented, published, or submitted for publication elsewhere, please inform the Editor. Our primary objective is to publish technical material not otherwise available, but we do occasionally publish papers of unusual merit that have appeared or will appear elsewhere.

1. Typewrite, double-space; use one side of sheet only. Good office-duplicated copies are acceptable. Often, reviewers wish to write comments directly on a manuscript. This is not possible when the manuscript is single space or photo-reduced. In addition, you will be asked for a double-space manuscript in the event of acceptance of your manuscript.
2. Regular papers are normally about 12 Transactions pages in length, or shorter. Technical correspondences are generally no more than 6 Transactions pages in length. Please see the discussion on excess page charges for charges that are imposed when manuscripts exceed 12 and 6 pages.
3. Since the TRANSACTIONS publishes only in English, contributors for whom English is not a native language should consult a colleague who is familiar with the English language, prior to submitting the paper, for the purpose of editing the original manuscript.
4. Provide an informative 100 to 250 word abstract at the head of the manuscript; provide an abstract of not more than 100 words for Correspondences.
5. Provide a separate double-spaced sheet listing all footnotes, beginning with "Manuscript received..." (date to be filled in by Editor) and affiliation of the author(s), and continuing with numeric citation. Acknowledgement of financial support is placed at the end of the first footnote.
6. References should appear in a separate section at the end of the paper, double-spaced, with items referred to by numerals in square brackets. References must be complete and in IEEE style: Style for papers: Author, first initials followed by last name, title in quotations, periodical, volume, page numbers, month, year. Style for books: Author, title. Location: publisher, year, chapter, and page numbers (if desired). See any issue of the Transactions for examples.
7. Provide a separate sheet listing all figure captions.
8. Authors of accepted papers will be asked to supply a head and shoulders photograph of themselves and a technical biography. The biography should be in the form used in IEEE TRANSACTIONS, consisting of three paragraphs of information: name, where and when born, degrees earned, field(s) of study, school, city, state; chief employment dates, organizations, positions held, type of work, responsibilities, present position; and professional society membership, offices, awards.
9. For further instructions see "Information for IEEE Authors," available on request from the IEEE Editorial Department, 345 East 47 Street, New York, NY 10017. This and other information may be obtained at the WWW site "http://www.ieee.org".

1. Originals for illustrations (including tables) should be sharp, noise-free, and of good contrast as they will be photographed or electronically scanned. We regret that we cannot provide drafting or art service.
2. Line drawings should be in India ink on drafting cloth, paper, or board. Alternately, laser jet quality illustrations may be used. Use 8 1/2 by 11-in (21.6 by 27.9-cm) size sheets, if possible, to simplify handling of the manuscript.
3. On graphs, show only the coordinate axes, or at most the major grid lines to avoid a dense hard-to-read result.
4. All lettering should be large enough to permit legible reduction of the figure to column width, sometimes as much as 4 to 1. There should only be one illustration per page and only illustrations should be included in the set of illustrations. Please be very sure that your lettering is sufficiently large such that it will be readable after photo-reduction.
5. Photographs should be glossy prints, of good contrast and gradation, and any reasonable size.
6. Number each original on the back or at the bottom of the front.
7. Captions lettered on figures will be blocked out in reproduction in favor of typeset captions (see B-5).
8. If an illustration is to be reproduced in color the author is responsible for the incremental cost of printing in color.

After a manuscript has been accepted for publication, the author's company or institution will be requested to pay a voluntary charge of $110 per printed page to cover part of the cost of publication. These page charges, like those for journals of other professional societies, are not obligatory nor is their payment a prerequisite for publication. The author will receive 100 free reprints without covers if this charge is honored. A mandatory overlength page charge of $175 is required for each page in excess of 12 pages for a regular paper and 6 pages for technical correspondences. Author who are concerned with these latter charges are encouraged to estimate the length of their manuscripts prior to submission. Detailed instructions on payment of these charges will accompany the page proof.

E. Electronic Publishing

The IEEE is now able to set galley proofs directly from a MS-DOS, or Macintosh formatted disk. Most word processing formats are supported to some extent but TeX, LaTeX, or Troff are the preferred editors. A floppy disk should now accompany submission of final manuscripts that have been accepted for publication. The contents of the floppy must agree with those on the hardcopy of final manuscripts as both are used in the copy editing process. If this does not occur, significant delays in publishing your material will result. This material may be submitted by electronic mail. A floppy disk is still needed, however. Further details are contained in manuscript acceptance and final manuscript received letters.

F. Copyright

It is the policy of the IEEE to own the copyright to the technical contributions it publishes on behalf of the interests of the IEEE, its authors, and their employers, and to facilitate the appropriate reuse of this material by others. To comply with the U.S. Copyright law, authors are required to sign an IEEE Copyright Form before publication. This form, a copy of which appears in the September/October 1989 issue of this journal, returns to authors and their employers full rights to reuse their material for their own purposes. Authors must submit a signed copy of this form with their final manuscripts.