Welcome to our second issue of IEEE Applications and Practice. This is the newest IEEE Communications Society publication. I will take this opportunity to reiterate its goals and provide an overview of this publication. The goal of this magazine is to present articles of interest to the engineering practitioners who comprise a vital part of our membership. We will publish technically reviewed articles, application notes, and technical papers for the engineering practitioner in communications technology.

Articles will be geared toward those with a general interest in technology, both the entry level practitioner and the expert, although we expect our articles to be accessible and of interest to all readers. Our hope is that this magazine will fully engage the engineering practitioner and serve as a high-quality repository for valuable "lessons learned," best practices, and technology overviews. Through this engagement we hope to involve a large portion of our practitioner community through either the authorship of papers, assisting with the paper review process, or serving as associate or guest editors.

As with all our publications, the high quality and success of A&P will depend on the community it serves to contribute time, creative energy, and passion. All articles will undergo peer review. For this process to be successful, we need active involvement of "peers" — practitioners to review and comment on submitted papers to ensure their technical accuracy, interest-level, and overall high quality.
A&P will be published quarterly as an insert in IEEE Communications Magazine. In the long term, A&P will be an ezine, an online magazine with electronic delivery. We are grateful for the support of the IEEE New Initiatives Committee (NIC), which is assisting with the financial aspects of this launch.

The first series of A&P focuses on RFID technology. The first issue appeared along with the April issue of this magazine. Two guest editors, Daniel Engels of University of Texas at Austin and Paul Hartmann,V.P. Engineering. RF SAW, Inc, Richardson, TX, now joined by Tom Kerr, Vocollect, Inc., are providing the leadership. Articles include overviews of the field and such topics as market trends, applications, public policy, and tutorials on everything from chips through systems, as well as visionary articles on the future evolution of the technology and its applications. We will also consider articles on career paths and education requirements.

The topic of RFID was selected by the IEEE'S New Technology Directions Committee (NTDC). We believe this is a fitting topic for the first series because RFID is a practical, growing technology. As its use becomes more pervasive, an increasing number of practitioners will become involved; newcomers to the field will rely heavily on the knowledge of RFID experts. The technology and applications are rapidly changing, and new trends are emerging; this publication will help keep pace with these changes.

In this second issue we have three excellent articles. The first, "RFID Infrastructure," by Krishna and Husak, provides a comprehensive presentation of the entire RFID system, from devices to protocols. "Passive RFID: An Overview," by Chawla and Ha, focuses on RFID tags and their evolution. The final article, "Leveraging RDIF in Healthcare: A Patient Lifecycle Perspective," by Cangialosi, Monaly, and Yang, discusses the benefits and challenges of deploying RFID in a healthcare setting.

We all hope you enjoy this new publication and become actively involved in its creation and success. Please do not hesitate to contact me directly if you wish to get involved.

Thomas F. La Porta
Penn State University
Distinguished Professor, Computer Science and
Engineering & Electrical Engineering
tlp@cse.pus.edu