A Must-read Journal for Engineering

My first contact with Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering Journal was at the end of the last century, in 1999. I was writing, with my lab colleagues, an article describing our latest research on mobile robot localization in indoor environments, and we had to decide the journal we wanted to send it to. ICAE was one of the journals we received, and consulted frequently at our university library. ICAE was chosen, after an internal meeting, because the articles on robotics that we had read showed a perfect balance between theoretical developments and practical applications and this was very similar to what we were trying to do in our research. It was not my first article sent to a journal, but I did not need more than the fingers of one hand to count them and there were fingers left. My previous experience could be summarized as first a frantic activity for the preparation of the article followed by a great expectation waiting for the answers of the reviewers, and finally a long wait, usually months until receiving a couple of reviews. The case of ICAE was very different as we received suggestions from the reviewers within weeks. The second surprise was that the number of reviewers was higher than I had seen before. Thus, I learned, firsthand, of the proper functioning that the Editor in Chief, Professor Hojjat Adeli, enforced, and still apply, on the journal: quick, deep, rigorous and numerous reviews.

Since then, I have co-authored six publications in ICAE, the journal where I have published the greatest number of articles. Somehow, we have grown together, I as a researcher, from a young post-doc to Professor and ICAE has been gaining prestige and dissemination over the years until reaching the summit that it now holds. In all these years Professor Hojjat Adeli has not loosened the wheel and has continued to edit and publish the journal with the highest degrees of demand and standard. For one of my articles, I received seven detailed reviews! I still remember the face of one of my PhDs students when we got so many reviews about that article. His gaze was accusatory for me having suggested sending the article to ICAE and on the other hand he showed his fear not being able to comply to so many improvements and ideas. Thanks to Professor Adeli’s help and extraordinary efforts our final manuscript was, not only accepted, but, above all, was improved significantly.

I have always felt confident when I have sent an article to ICAE. I knew the review process was going to be tough, but fair and fast. In some other journals I might have received a faster response, but with some suggestions that have helped me little to improve my article. In others, reviewers barely knew the subject my work was about. In some others, I’m still waiting for the reviews after several months. I have not found any other journal where the balance that Professor Adeli has achieved as Editor-in-chief in terms of quality, quality, and speed of reviews.

As a reviewer of the journal, I can only thank Professor Hojjat Adeli for his perfect balance between the requirement to meet deadlines and understanding for the lack of time or the inability to make a review.

Therefore, as an author and reader of ICAE, I think it is one of the few technology journals that has really shaped and influenced the development of technology in the past 30 years. Now that Artificial Intelligence and Robotics are showing their true potential and will influence the development of our knowledge society, journals like ICAE are key and fundamental for this knowledge development and discovery and to assure that it reaches every corner of the world.

I wish to thank the Editor in Chief, Professor Adeli, for giving me the chance to write a brief editorial in commemoration of the journal’s nearly 30 years of existence. Congratulations on so much work done extraordinarily! I would also like to extend these congratulations to the members of the Editorial Advisory Board and numerous Conscientious Reviewers who make the Society of ICAE and help keep the journal standards at such a high level and to all the authors who have trust on the work led by Professor Adeli and who made the journal a magnificent example of technical rigor.

Arturo de la Escalera Hueso

Professor

Systems Engineering and Automation Department

Carlos III University of Madrid

28911, Leganes, Madrid, Spain

E-mail: escalera@ing.uc3m.es