Welcome to the Fall 2004 edition of the SISO Simulation Technology On-Line Magazine. The M&S community and profession is ever growing and the challenges we face can sometimes seem daunting. But however difficult, these challenges are interesting and most often fun to take on and solve. In the process we grow as a community and present real solutions to real issues and leave a lasting and positive impact on our community and those we serve. SISO plays a critical role in supporting this ever growing community of M&S professionals in addressing these challenges by advancing new ideas in the form of technologies, standards and best practices all aimed at improving the application of M&S solutions and meeting the community’s needs. We believe that this on-line magazine supports and enhances that role and we are proud of the contribution it makes.
Without a doubt we are excited about the great articles and features that have come together for this issue. The number of submissions was overwhelming and outstanding. Sure makes it easy to bring together an outstanding issue when you get such a wealth of excellent material to draw upon. In this edition you will find a lot of great articles covering topics like “The Applicability of Open Standards”, “Applying Design Patterns for Enabling Simulation Interoperability” and “Linking Live, Virtual and Constructive Environments for Digital Battle Command Testing and Training” to name just a few. In addition you have the regular features like the reports from our SISO Committees as well as some great reflections from the outgoing Army M&S Office Director, Dell Lunceford. You cannot help but enjoy this issue and we look forward to your feedback.
We are committed to a continual effort of exploring new ideas for insuring that both the SISO Simulation Technology On-Line Magazine and now the hard copy insert for the SCS Modeling & Simulation Magazine stay current, interesting and packed full of outstanding content. We are looking at ways for organizing the On-Line version of the magazine around a set of regular features aimed at bringing the latest insights from various aspects of our profession. And of course there will always be the Editor’s choice option that will allow us to bring interesting articles that may not neatly fit into a regular features focus. We continue to look for volunteers to assist in bringing together the various features of this On-Line magazine. If you would like to help in this exciting venture, please let us know. We truly appreciate the contributions of all of our volunteers as well as the contributions of the excellent staff at UCF/IST that helps bring this all together for us.
As always we are open to your ideas and participation so don’t hesitate to contact us. And if you like what you see, please share what you’re doing with us by submitting an article for future editions.
Thanks,
Mike and Sharon