This second issue of the Newsletter listed approximately 250 ACES members. President Miller introduced a modeling short-note format. The ACES News column announced the Third Annual Review of Progress in Applied Computational Electromagneticss, to be held at NPS in March, 1987. Other items contained in this issue were: Correspondence, Modeling Notes, Pandora's Box, Computer Code Descriptions, Available Software, MININEC-3 Updates, four articles, and a list of 19 institutional members.
Theodore Roach (Microcube Corporation) launched the Available Software section and included a statement of policy about an EE (Electrical Engineering) Public Domain Software Library in Plainview, NY. R. Dawson Coblin edited Pandora's Box, which would treat unsuccessful applications of commonly used codes. Unfortunately, code users proved unwilling to confess such applications for this column. The Available Software section, edited by Donn Campbell, presented descriptions of ten computer codes furnished by Theodore Roach and James Logan in an ACES Software Form appropriate for the purpose.
On March 21, 1987, just before the Third Annual Review of Progresss, Treasurer Breakall gave a financial status report on ACES. At that time ACES funds resided in four locations: a "Computer Modeling EM Workshop" Account at LLNL, a Conference Account at NPS, a savings account, and a checking account. The balance was $27,107. Since the early financial history of a fledgling organization may be of interest to similar organizations this report is included as Appendix C.
This financial report made a "wild guess" of the 5-year projected budget through 1991. This projection allowed for the disappearance of both LLNL and NPS support. Future financing of ACES was stated as the most important action to be taken at the Third Annual Review. This Review, organized by Secretary Adler with program scheduling aid from Robert Bevensee, featured 54 papers in 8 sessions, one poster paper on IGUANA, 7 PC demonstrations, and an NEC Users Panel Discussion and a Computer Graphics Panel Discussion.
In the Vol. II, No. 1 Newsletter of May, 1987 President Miller (now at Rockwell Science Center) reported the attendance of 125 persons at the Third Annual Review, March 24-26, 1987 at NPS. There were more than 40 presentations, PC (Personal Computer) demonstrations, and panel discussions. At the business meeting Lee Corrington (USAISEC, Ft. Huachuca) was elected to ADCOM for a 3-year term, replacing Donn Campbell, whose term had expired. The number of Newsletter editors had now grown to 12, with David Stein as the new Editor-in-chief. His policy was to encourage diversification of papers into areas such as radar cross section, shielding, radiation hazards, remote sensing, and even low frequency applications, so as to promote a cross-pollination which would penetrate self-imposed "boundary conditions" between disciplines. Papers could describe computational techniques using not only integral equations solved by the method-of-moments but also diffraction theories, physical optics, modal expansions, perturbation theory, differential equations and hybrid methods-in both the time and frequency domains.
The ACES Software Library had grown, with the addition of five new items described on their ACES Software Forms. Information on other software sources was furnished by Theodore Roach.
Secretary Adler received a letter dated March 2, 1988, from Dr. Brian A. Austin (University of Liverpool), describing the outcome of a June, 1987, IEE meeting in London of those in the United Kingdom (UK) interested in computational electromagnetics-NEC and MININEC in particular. This "embryonic" organization was encouraged by the success of ACES and its Newsletter to meet annually as the NEC Users Group and to start its own Newsletter. Dr. Patricia Foster (Consultant, Microwave & Antenna Systems) extolled the virtues of ACES membership in the first issue of the NEC Users' Newsletter, published in the Spring of 1988. The first sentence of her article read "Joining ACES ....is a little like having an extra Christmas-a deluge of fat parcels arrives". She referred to the ACES Newsletters and Reviews of Progress Proceedings.
The fall of 1987 saw the appearance of Volume II, No. 2 of the ACES Journal and Newsletter, now a combined publication with peer-reviewed papers. The editors included at that time Secretary Adler as Managing Editor and Michael Thorburn (Oregon State University) as Advertising Editor, both on the staff of Editor-in-chief Stein (now with LTV Aerospace and Defense Co.). Eleven associate editors completed the Publication staff.
Two new committees were announced: Conference and Nominations.
President Miller reported that the Publications Committee revised the ACES brochure sent to prospective members. The revised version would also be sent to university electrical engineering departments, as well as persons involved with development of electromagnetic modeling codes. Editor-in-chief Stein announced the intention to publish at least one special (Thematic) issue of the ACES Journal and Newsletter each year, beginning in 1988, in addition to the two regular issues. His intent was to maintain "rapid turnaround" for regular issue contributors, while also exploiting the promotional advantages of Thematic Issues.
Chairman Roach announced a total of 12 items in the growing ACES Software Library.