From the Editor

The latest issue of IFMBE News, published after the summer holidays in September, may have left the impression that there is not much happening in the IFMBE community. I am happy to inform you that this was a false alarm and that in fact, a lot has been done this autumn. Furthermore, there are a lot of important events in the forthcoming months.

Let me first mention the General Assembly of the International Council of Science Union (ICSU) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 20-28th September, 2002. Our President, Prof. Dov Jaron was attending the meeting and representing IUPESM (and through the Union, the IFMBE, too). Following the discussions of the GA in Paris 2001, where Keith Boddy proposed health and well being to become an ICSU theme, Dov Jaron made a formal recommendation to the participants, to adopt this theme for an initiative in which all of the Bio-related Unions will collaborate. This suggestion was accepted with great enthusiasm. Read more on this subject in Dov's report in this issue.

The year 2003 is not only the year of the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, to be held in Sydney, Australia (www.wc2003.org) but the year of elections for new officers and Administrative Council members. Find more on open positions, nomination and the election procedure in this issue.

Two major IFMBE regional conferences will be held at the beginning of December this year: the 2nd European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference in Vienna, and the International Congress on Biological and Medical Engineering incorporating 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering organised under the auspices of the Asia-Pacific Working Group of the IFMBE in Singapore. Do not forget to visit the www.embec.org and www.icbme.org for detailed information. In addition, the web site of the World Congress and the 6th International Conference on Cellular Engineering (an IFMBE co-sponsored conference to be held in Sydney as a WC satellite event) should be viewed in order to plan your trip to Australia in good time. www.celleng2003.org.au.

The EMBEC '02 in Vienna is of special importance for the European IFMBE affiliated societies. In the framework of the Conference, the 1st European MBES Forum "Role of MBES in Europe" is organised with scope to discuss the role of MBES within the current European-wide initiatives such as the European Research Area and to present the results of the IFMBE Protem group that was assigned to build a European Alliance in Medical and Biological Engineering and Science, EAMBES. The Special Session Biomedical Engineering Education Moving Towards European Harmonization: Initiatives and Experiences will present the challenges European BME Societies are facing due to the new developments in higher education and research.

The IFMBE makes systematic efforts to increase the visibility of Medical and Biological Engineering through its publications. The most important publication is the Federation's journal, Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing, whose impact factor has risen steadily over the last three years. I believe that most of you have taken the opportunity to access the Journal on-line during the free subscription period. If not, do so before the end of this year when this offer is due to close. If you found MBEC interesting, please do not forget to ask your library to subscribe to the journal.

IFMBE and IoPP have signed an agreement that establishes the Series in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering of IoPP as the official IFMBE book series. IoPP is inviting potential authors to send in proposals for possible books in this series.

The Proceedings of the 2nd European Medical and Biological Engineering Conference in Vienna are the third volume in the IFMBE Proceedings Series, started in 2001. The first volume was very well accepted by the bibliographic databases and most of the published papers are cited in INSPEC and in ISI Proceedings databases.

With each new issue of the News, we learn more about our young colleagues who received awards at various scientific events and on their research programs. In this issue, we introduce Soile Nymark, Tommi Noponen and Marko Tirri, the winners of the awards at the First Medical Physics and Medical Engineering Day organised by the Finish BME Society and Eduardo Ros Vidal, one of the award winners at the Como Workshop on Biosignal Interpretation.

The Swedish BME Society has decided to held the next Nordic Baltic BME Conference (2005) in Umea, a city approximately 600 km to the North of Stockholm. Many of us will have the oportunity to see the midnight sun again. Looking forward to it!

I have been following the number of 'hits' to the News in this year and am pleased to say that it is continuously increasing. I invite you to read the reports in this issue, explore the news from the world of BME science and to send your comments and contributions for the next issues of the news.

Ratko Magjarevic ratko.magjarevic@fer.hr