First, I would like to request all women members reading this article to submit their information to the new Women in Signal Processing Directory. The WISP Directory aims to increase and promote visibility and recognition of women in signal processing fields, positioning them for awards, leadership roles, and more.

Starting in 2017, the Women in Signal Processing Subcommittee became a standing committee of the Membership Board, rather than a subcommittee of the Member Services Committee, meaning the WISP Chair now holds a seat on the Membership Board.  Much has happened in 2017, and we look forward to an even more productive 2018.

Nominations Due: 5 February 2018

In accordance with the provision of IEEE Bylaw 307, the Division IX Nominating Committee hereby solicits your nominations for the position of Division IX Director-Elect.  Please send your nominations to Theresa Argiropoulos, SPS Senior Manager, Operations, via t.argiropoulos@ieee.org, as she will be collecting the nominations on my behalf.

For our January 2018 issue, we cover recent patents granted in the area of applications of medical MR or CT data segmentation.

The invention no. 9,659,370 relates to a method for segmenting MR Dixon image data. A processor and a computer program product are also disclosed for use in connection with the method. The invention finds application in the MR imaging field in general and more specifically may be used in the generation of an attenuation map to correct for attenuation by cortical bone during the reconstruction of PET images.

The Signal Processing Society (SPS) has 12 Technical Committees and 3 Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that support a broad selection of signal processing-related activities defined by the scope of the Society.

The Arduino Simple Programming at school was held at five different schools near Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor from October-November 2017. The schools are SK Jelutong, SMK Sri gading, SK Pintas Puding, SK Bukit Kuari and SK Seri Sabak Uni. The objective of Professional Knowledge Transfer Workshop is to give an exposure to the students of primary and secondary schools on engineering and to inspire them to be engineers. This program was organized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) UTHM Student Branch with cooperation of IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) Malaysia Chapter. 

Engineering safety and computer security have traditionally been viewed as separate fields: safety concentrates on the avoidance of physical harm; security protects information and privacy. When computers and physical plants did not interoperate, separation of safety and security was both reasonable and prudent. Given the advent of CPSs, we can no longer consider these problems as separate.