The articles in this issue reflect the great diversity of problems that are included in the IJCIM's information management charge to cover the world of information management.There is, in fact, little in the larger world that is not somehow reflected in the microcosm of the new technology. That larger world is rapidly and radically being transformed by computer technology and at the IJCIM we have as our goal providing our readers a sample of fascinating developments in many areas of detail.

The large scope of our interests is especially expressed in the journal's new name, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE COMPUTER, THE INTERNET AND MANAGEMENT, which reflects our technical side, our administrative side, and our fascination with the implications of the large-scale connectivity of modern computing systems. With this change, we fully acknowledge that the line between the managerial and technical aspects of information technology are quite narrow. That narrowness has always been reflected in the content of the journal, but now it is stated up front on the masthead. And to celebrate the change we include in this issue articles concerned with a fascinating range of issues.

The broadest issue considered in this issue is found in Liaquat Hossain's article about national strategic planning for Thailand's National Information Infrastructure. The development of this infrastructure is critical for allowing the Thai economy—and Thai society as a whole—to be ready for the challenges of the twenty first century. The author of this article interviewed a number of leaders of the effort and makes important suggestions about how the project should be managed.

The development of information infrastructure in Thailand and throughout the world will play a key role in the development of the new world economy. Despite the technological advances, however, economic globalization will inevitably be held back by the many forces that currently continue to keep countries and their economies apart. Among the most central of these forces is language. In their article S. Liu, S.C. Hui, S. Foo, and P.C. Leong consider a method of multilingual on line translation over the World Wide Web and applied specifically technical support reports of a multinational manufacturing operation.

Another important application is treated by C.Y. Kong, C.M. Hadzer, and M.Y. Mashor. Tracking airplanes by radar is very important in both civilian and military contexts and, particularly as the airspaces get more densely populated, it is critical that humans get electronic assistance in this task. The authors explore the use of neural net technologies for not only tracking where planes are but also for predicting where they will be in the immediate future.

Finally, the most technical of this issues articles is by Mohd Yusoff Mashor, which deals with the improvement of an important statistical algorithm. While the scope of this article seems, and is, much more narrow than one, for example, considering overall technology policy, such narrowness is not a weakness. Whenever one looks at the larger issues in this field one must remember that those issues are realized only in the form of the detailed codes developed by programmers. In this field, more than any other, the large-scale aspects of the work are deeply interdependent on the smaller scaled details.

Prof. Dr. Srisakdi Charmonman
Editor-In-Chief