I was speaking to my sister a few days ago and she would not believe the number of challenges that I have been through in the past few years. My recent ordeal (last month) involved my kids and I having dinner at my girlfriend’s house. She was cooking steaks on her grill and there were leaves in the grill that ignited. The grill caught fire on the porch and blew up, and it burned her house down. Everyone was safe (which is most important), but it will take four or five months to rebuild her house. She is now putting up with me and my kids in my condo and is being a real trooper about it. My sister tells me that, if God is trying to teach me something, he must think I am a slow learner.

One thing that we are learning at Optical Engineering is that we are receiving a large increase in submitted manuscripts in the area of signal and image processing, particularly in general topics such as image segmentation, watermarking, encryption, texture analysis, etc. This area is growing rapidly and these submissions are overwhelming and diluting the other Optical Engineering topics such as interferometry, lasers, optical design, etc. There are some signal and image processing papers that solve significant optical engineering issues. An example might be “super-resolution for imaging system performance” or “small boat tracking in harbors.” These types of papers are of interest to optical engineers and are highly relevant content for the Optical Engineering community. However, we have found that the general signal and image processing manuscripts do not offer content that is likely to be downloaded, read, and cited by optical engineers.

In the future, we will accept only papers in signal and image processing that have a significant impact on optical engineering issues. We will not accept general signal and image processing papers. There are many other journals that specialize in these topics and are more likely to have a reasonable constituency that will read these papers. Also, we will not accept Letters manuscripts in the area of image and signal processing. There are few optical engineering issues that need to be rushed to publication involving signal and image processing. Overall, this is a small shift in scope for Optical Engineering.

I know that my sister thinks I am a slow learner now. I’ve discussed this with a few colleagues since she brought this up and they agree. So now, I am going to create the “Slow Learners Club.” I have a few friends who could be life members. I’ll not name any names!